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Title: 24 Days: How Two Wall Street Journal Reporters Uncovered the Lies that Destroyed Faith in Corporate America by Rebecca Smith, John R. Emshwiller ISBN: 0-06-052073-6 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: August, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.91 (22 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Stick to your knitting
Comment: The authors, both Wall Street Journal beat reporters, found themselves in the middle of the paper's coverage of the demise of Enron at the end of 2001. They do an admirable job of retelling the story of Enron's 24 day death spiral - from October 16, 2002 when Enron announced big losses associated with two partnerships to December 3rd when Enron filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. If you missed any of the daily installments in this big-business soap opera, this work will fill in most of the gaps.
There's also the story of what it's like to cover a big on-going economic event for the nation's leading business daily. The Journal's reporters can be confident that media sensitive business people are going to respond to their calls first. However, the writers give the impression that they were pretty much on their own after that and that all the Journal editors in New York do is decide on how much space to devote to each article.
I had two complaints about this otherwise solid book. First, after 381 pages, I'm still not sure how the villainous partnerships worked. The authors spent lots of time in 2001 trying to figure them out. It would have been nice if they had used this book to tell in a clear way what they discovered. How were they set up? How did they enrich Enron employees and how did they contribute to Enron's destruction? The second complaint comes form the author's attempt to personalize their coverage. Each time I read about their gulps of coffee in the morning and hints of bad feeling between the two of them I cringed. Smith and Emshwiller are solid business reporters - they and we would be better served if they stuck to their knitting.
Rating: 4
Summary: Great Story - But Bits Need Better Explaining
Comment: I thoroughly enjoyed the story of two journalists painstakingly uncovering Enron Corporation lie by lie. Brilliant insight into the little-known world of how the WSJ reporters approach major companies. This is an important read for all corporate PR departments and top managers. In today's world, exevcutives must know how to deal with the press. ... However, I am disappointed the authors didn't simplify the accounting transactions and take time to really spell them out. They could have used some illustrations to give an idea of what Enron's CFO was doing. I read the book carefully, but still can't explain to others the basics of "off-balance-sheet partnerships". So, you will find this book insightful. It is well written. The reporting has the WSJ truthfulness about it. But,I just wish they took the time to explain off-blance sheet partnerships. Many companies use them legally/ethically. So what are they? I am still not exactly sure what Enron did.
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting book, but fails to really exploit its strength
Comment: This is a pretty decent book. It gives a fairly good overview of what went wrong with Enron and a fairly good look at the process the authors worked through in reporting on Enron for the Wall Street Journal. So, why don't I rate it a 5-star book? Mainly because it doesn't excel in either area. As an Enron story, it's far less revealing than "The Smartest Guys in the Room". As a book about what it's like to be reporters breaking a huge story, I think it fails to convey the sense of excitement and accomplishment they must have felt. So, in my opinion, they produced a good, interesting book that fell far short of its potential.
My memory of the events unfolding around Enron's spectacular failure places The Wall Street Journal in a leading role in terms of pressuring the company to start to be more forthcoming in its public dealings. Surely there was a lot of intrigue and tension involved with being the reporters driving this story. But this book doesn't really give the reader a feeling about what that was like. Maybe it was as nearly routine as the feel of the book suggests, but I have to believe it was more gripping than that. And as far as telling the Enron failure story, this book gives a decent overview, but there are better chronicles of that story.
So, was I disappointed that I read this book? No, it was pretty good. I just felt it could have been a lot more. I think I'm coming to the conclusion that writers for periodicals don't tend to write the best books. They're good at "just the facts, Ma'am" storytelling, but to deliver a really outstanding book, a writer has to be able to use the larger canvas to paint pictures that he can place the reader in. These authors don't do that and, I'd say that unless you're pretty interested in the Enron story, you could skip this one.
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Title: Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind ISBN: 1591840082 Publisher: Portfolio Pub. Date: 13 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron by SHERRON WATKINS, MIMI SWARTZ ISBN: 0385507879 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Final Accounting : Ambition, Greed and the Fall of Arthur Andersen by Barbara Ley Toffler, Jennifer Reingold ISBN: 0767913825 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 04 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron by Robert Bryce, Molly Ivins ISBN: 158648138X Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 08 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: Enron: The Rise and Fall by Loren Fox ISBN: 0471237604 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 20 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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