Q&A Part IV: Interview with Michael Rapoport

Q6. Brief bio of Michael Rapoport:

A: 1999-present: Columnist writing the "In the Money" column for Dow Jones Newswires, focusing on delving beneath the surface of financial statements and market trends to find the stories that companies would rather investors not know about.

Awards:
Finalist in World Leadership Forum's Business Journalist of the Year awards, best wire service journalist or team, 2008

Society of American Business Editors and Writers "Best in Business" award, wire service columns, 2007

National Headliner Award, best news service columns/commentary, 2001

Dow Jones Newswires Awards for best work done by Newswires journalists, 2001 and 2007

1996-1999: Reporter for Dow Jones Newswires covering courts and legal issues, stationed at federal courthouse in Manhattan

1995-1996: Copyreader on the desk at Dow Jones Newswires.

1993-1995: Editor for Dow Jones News Retrieval (now part of Factiva), working on business-news databases and other projects

1985-1993: Reporter for various daily newpapers in Connecticut

Master's in journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 1985

Bachelor's in English and political science from University of Rochester, 1984

Q7. What are the three top websites you read everyday?

WSJ.com - the online edition of the Wall Street Journal. Subscription required, but I'm sure the NYU journalism library would have access to it.

SEC.gov - the Securities and Exchange Commission's website. Useful for finding companies' securities filings, learning about SEC rules and enforcement cases, and how investors, companies and everyone else interact with regulators.

The Big Picture (http://bigpicture.typepad.com/) - The best blog about Wall Street and American business, written by Barry Ritholtz, head of a securities-research firm.
Columbia Journalism Review's The Audit (http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/) - Critique of business news.

Q8. Please recommend a few books on writing or on business and economics.

Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis (A classic about Wall Street's take-no-prisoners culture.)

Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald (The best book on the Enron scandal.)

Wall Street Versus America by Gary Weiss (About the routine corruption in the securities industry.)

The Financial Numbers Game: Detecting Creative Accounting Practices by Charles W. Mulford and Eugene E. Comiskey (Shows you how to find when companies are bending the truth about their numbers. Mulford is a frequent source of mine.)

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