Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments and Dedication
- PERSPECTIVES ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND THE CEO
- PART TWO THE WHY, WHEN, HOW, AND HOW MUCH OF EXECUTIVE PAY
- PART THREE CONSTRAINING MANAGERS AND DIRECTORS: INVESTORS, SECURITIES REGULATION, AND THE MEDIA
- 7 Shareholder Activism in the Obama Era
- 8 After Dura: Causation in Fraud-on-the-Market Actions
- 9 From Boardroom to Courtroom to Newsroom: The Media and the Corporate Governance Scandals
- PART FOUR DELAWARE VERSUS CONGRESS: ON THE FEDERALIZATION OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
- PART FIVE COMPARATIVE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
- Epilogue: Three Secular Trends of Corporate Law
- Index
- References
9 - From Boardroom to Courtroom to Newsroom: The Media and the Corporate Governance Scandals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments and Dedication
- PERSPECTIVES ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND THE CEO
- PART TWO THE WHY, WHEN, HOW, AND HOW MUCH OF EXECUTIVE PAY
- PART THREE CONSTRAINING MANAGERS AND DIRECTORS: INVESTORS, SECURITIES REGULATION, AND THE MEDIA
- 7 Shareholder Activism in the Obama Era
- 8 After Dura: Causation in Fraud-on-the-Market Actions
- 9 From Boardroom to Courtroom to Newsroom: The Media and the Corporate Governance Scandals
- PART FOUR DELAWARE VERSUS CONGRESS: ON THE FEDERALIZATION OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
- PART FIVE COMPARATIVE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
- Epilogue: Three Secular Trends of Corporate Law
- Index
- References
Summary
The first trial is always in the court of public opinion.
– Donald Watkins, legal adviser to HealthSouth's CEO Richard ScrushyEnron and its progeny spawned an unprecedented amount of press coverage. To their credit, the media comprehensively covered allegations of widespread accounting fraud as serious and important news. Major newspapers deserve special credit for the breadth and depth of their coverage.
While it was a safe assumption that the sagas of Enron and – to a lesser extent – media icon Martha Stewart would receive sustained media attention, the sheer magnitude of the corporate governance scandals fueled extraordinary coverage of massive frauds at WorldCom, Tyco, HealthSouth, and Adelphia, to name but a few. Before Enron collapsed into bankruptcy and became mired in a complex Web of investigations, few would have predicted that the editors of the Wall Street Journal would devote significant resources – including prominent front-page space – to criminal investigations and prosecutions on a long-term basis. But, to the Journal's credit, it did.
Apart from the value that intensive coverage of virtually every aspect of the corporate meltdown provided the papers' general readership, the press also helped inform public debate about how such massive frauds could have occurred over a prolonged period of time without detection. For elected officials, business executives, legal and accounting professionals, academicians, and corporate governance activists, the burning question was, What went wrong and how can we fix it? The remarkable thing is that, thanks to media saturation, almost everyone knew something about it.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Perspectives on Corporate Governance , pp. 293 - 332Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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