Smith, Rebecca and Emshwiller, John R. 24 Days: How Two Wall Street Journal
Reporters Uncovered the Lies That Destroyed Faith in Corporate America.
New York: HarperBusiness (HarperCollins), 2003. 400 pages.
Rebecca Smith and John R. Emshwiller worked together out of the Los
Angeles bureau of the Wall Street Journal in 2001. They were interested in
evidence of price manipulation by Enron and other companies, as the price
of California electricity had spiked beginning in May 2000, and supplies
continued to be a problem. Then on August 14, 2001, Jeff Skilling announced
his resignation from Enron. By October Enron's stock price was plunging,
and Andrew Fastow, the man behind the mysterious "Fastow partnerships,"
was fired. On December 2, 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy.
The title of this book comes from its blow-by-blow description of how
these two reporters covered the Enron story through interviews, confidential
sources, Internet searches, and even reading the fine print in obtuse and
incomprehensible footnotes found in SEC reports filed by Enron. The Fastow
partnerships became known as LJM, LJM2, and Chewco. In January, Arthur
Andersen announced that its employees had shredded Enron documents, and then
John Clifford Baxter, an Enron executive, committed suicide. Everything fell
apart very quickly. This book does not try to be the most comprehensive look
at Enron, but it does provide some of the Woodward and Bernstein buzz that's
been missing from American journalism for too many years.
ISBN 0-06-052073-6
Extract the names from this source
Back to search page