Research Paper thoughts and concerns...

Topic:
Financial scandals; reporting of financial scandals, regulations, Bernie Madoff, AIG

Thesis:
Difference between the reporting on current financial scandals, specially the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme and the AIG situation; how newspapers are reporting these two events and if they’re noting the difference between legal banking risk (AIG) and illegal banking schemes (Madoff).
Questions address in paper – Is it important to recognize and report the difference between the two scandals? How are both events being reported? What role does deregulation play in the situation and reporting?

Notes:
I will be using the Wall Street Journal as the source of reporting of these two stories (I will look at a week of reporting about the Madoff story and a week of reporting on the AIG story).
Should I use other reporting regarding these stories? Maybe additional reporting from media outlets such as CNN or Fox News or even bloggers? Or should I strictly focus paper/research on reporting by the Wall Street Journal?
Should I include editorial/opinion pieces from the paper, or stick with the actually news stories from the newspaper?

Research:
One week of reporting by the Wall Street Journal regarding Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme:
- The week was between December 12, 2008 to December 19th, 2008.
- From the four articles that I read from that week I found a running theme in the pieces about the role of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the story. At first, when reporting the story, the news reporters mentioned how Madoff swindled thousands of people over the years and in the end, loss about $50billion in his investors’ money. The interesting thing about the news stories is that quickly the reporters turned the spotlight and even blame away from Madoff and rather shined the light onto the SEC and even the people that believed in Madoff and were fooled by his scheme. The articles bring up a shocking finding that the SEC was made aware of possible illegal actions by Madoff nearly 16 years ago. Each article continued to discuss all the times when other people mentioned that something must be going-on at Madoff’s investment firm and yet each time the SEC did nothing to investigate the suspicions.
- After reading these articles, I wondered how the SEC could have not seen this coming years ago and why they did nothing to stop this man. I also was amazed at the fact that the scheme wasn’t discovered until Madoff himself confessed his crimes to his two sons.
- This made me thing of the role of media, specifically the media’s job as a watchdog. I’m surprised that this story didn’t get news coverage years ago and that the media didn’t discover the scheme before it was confessed.
- The story also brings to light the role of regulations, not in the media but in the banking world. America is the country that is it because people are allowed to be creative and free to be innovated- I believe that regulations definitely hinders people’s ability to be creative; however, what this story proves is that regulations are need more than even today. But, I’m not sure if this is important to my paper; I think that I should be looking at the regulations and deregulations of reporting in the media, rather than in the financial world.
- My biggest problem right now is defining my main point, I’m not sure if I truly understand where I’m going with my thesis and what my argument is.

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Research Paper Notes...

TOPIC: Reporting of financial scandals throughout US history

QUESTIONS:
- Which financial scandals?
- How am I comparing them?
Specific news outlets
Newspapers, TV programs, or online blogs
Comparing the reporting in general?
- Don’t think I can write ten pages on this??
- What’s my point?

BASICS:
- Scandals =
1.) American International Group (AIG): is a major American insurance corporation based at the American International Building in New York City. Is a major American insurance corporation based at the American International Building in New York City. It suffered from a liquidity crisis after its credit ratings were downgraded below "AA" levels, and the Federal Reserve Bank on September 16, 2008, created an $85 billion credit facility to enable the company to meet collateral and other cash obligations, at the cost to AIG of the issuance of a stock warrant to the Federal Reserve Bank for 79.9% of the equity of AIG.
§ In November 2008 the U.S. government revised its loan package to the company, increasing the total amount to $152 billion. AIG is attempting to sell assets to repay the loans. So far the U.S. government has given the company over $170 billion. (summary from wiki)

2.)PONZI SCHEME: Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff is an American businessman and former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange who was convicted of operating a Ponzi scheme that has been called the largest investor fraud ever committed by a single person. On March 12, 2009, Madoff pled guilty to an 11-count criminal complaint, admitting to defrauding thousands of investors. Federal prosecutors estimated client losses, which included fabricated gains, of almost $65 billion. (wiki)

a. Original Ponzi scheme: Charles Ponzi (March 3, 1882 – January 18, 1949) was one of the greatest swindlers in American history. His aliases include Charles Ponei, Charles P. Bianchi, Carl and Carlo. The term "Ponzi scheme" is a widely known description of any scam that pays early investors returns from the investments of later investors.

3.)WORLDCOM: WorldCom, one of the big success stories of the 1990s, said late Tuesday it will have to restate its financial results to account for billions of dollars in improper bookkeeping after an internal audit showed transfers of about $3.06 billion for 2001 and $797 million for the first quarter of 2002 were not made in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

4.)ENRON: The Enron scandal was a financial scandal involving Enron Corporation (former NYSE ticker symbol: ENE) and its accounting firm Arthur Andersen, that was revealed in late 2001. After a series of revelations involving irregular accounting procedures conducted throughout the 1990s, Enron was on the verge of bankruptcy by November 2001. A white knight rescue attempt by a similar, smaller energy company, Dynegy, was not viable. Enron filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001. (wiki)

- Focus on specific news outlets:
1. News Papers
New York Times
Wall Street Journal
2. News Programs (TV)
Fox News
CNN
3. Talk Radio
Rush Limbaugh