MetaFilter posts tagged with newyorktimes and business

Help Wanted, Autist

Obscure Reference — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 19:06:03 -0800

Most occupations require people skills. But for some, a preternatural capacity for concentration and near-total recall matter more. Those jobs, entrepreneur Thorkil Sonne says, could use a little autism.

"...how great it could still be.”

zarq — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 09:30:04 -0800

"Is she O.K.?" a customer asks.
"My mom?" asks Kristy, the waitress.
"Yes," the customer replies.
"No."

Since Sunday, the front page of the New York Times has been featuring a portrait in five parts of Elyria, Ohio (pop: 55,000), seen mostly through the lens of a local diner. (Second link is to a full multimedia feature, but direct links to the five individual articles can be found within.) Part 1: Donna's Diner: At The Corner of Hope and Worry Part 2: Elyrian Landscape: New Mayor, Big To-Do List Part 3: Elyria Then, Elyria Now: After a Childhood Pouring Refills, Reaching Beyond the Past Part 4: Never-Ending Conversation: In the Hard Fall of a Favorite Son, A Reminder of a City's Scars Part 5: Resilient Reinvention: With a New Menu and a Makeover, A Promise to Keep Going (Published today.) The author's article archive: Dan Barry. His column was the subject of a MeFi post in 2007. Elyria's official site. The Times Ombudsman weighs in: The “Donna’s Diner” articles, which have been featured on the front page since Sunday, are quiet, clear-eyed and thoughtful. They make no violent assertions. They merely offer a window into the way many Americans live today in parts of the country that get little attention, except as places where swing-state voters remain undecided. The stories offer that window through skillful storytelling about good people who are struggling to get by. The series is, indisputably, very long. Its opening piece last Sunday was 4,000 words — beginning on the front page under an inviting headline, “At the Corner of Hope and Worry,” and continuing to two full pages inside. I wondered, for a moment, if I had misunderstood. Five parts about a diner in Ohio? A total of almost 14,000 words?
A response from someone who grew up in the town: Where I Come From How does the town feel about the profile? Poynter is hosting a live chat at 2pm ET today with Dan Barry for a "behind-the-scenes look at the Elyria series."

Widespread corruption and bribery by Wal-Mart in Mexico

reductiondesign — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 04:39:45 -0800

"Wal-Mart dispatched investigators to Mexico City, and within days they unearthed evidence of widespread bribery. They found a paper trail of hundreds of suspect payments totaling more than $24 million. They also found documents showing that Wal-Mart de Mexico’s top executives not only knew about the payments, but had taken steps to conceal them from Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. [...] The lead investigator recommended that Wal-Mart expand the investigation. Instead, an examination by The New York Times found, Wal-Mart’s leaders shut it down."

10 years later: the AOL-Time Warner merger

zooropa — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 09:27:28 -0800

How the AOL-Time Warner Merger Went So Wrong Interviews with the key players involved with the AOL-Time Warner merger about its euphoric rise and pitiful fall. My opinion -- not a single one of these people (Steve Case, Jerry Levin, Bob Pittman, Ted Leonsis, et. al) takes any sort of responsibility. In fact, most of the Q&As are about how other people screwed up. The Time Warner people believe that it was AOL's puffed-up hot air and lack of accountability that screwed the deal from panning out. The AOL people keep going on and on about the "culture" at Time Warner -- more or less calling the company and its executives luddites without actually directly doing so. The choice quote comes from Ted Turner, who was the largest shareholder in Time Warner at the time: "I’d like to forget it. That’s what goes through my mind. I almost didn’t do this interview because I didn’t want to dig it up again. Let it pass into history. The Time Warner-AOL merger should pass into history like the Vietnam War and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It’s one of the biggest disasters that have occurred to our country."

The wall seperating analysts and traders appears to have completely broken down in Merril Lynch.

justlooking — Wed, 17 Apr 2002 16:33:48 -0800

The wall seperating analysts and traders appears to have completely broken down in Merril Lynch. Yesterday, NYT reported that SEC is joining the investigation. The accounting scandal in QWest is now one of many in the telecommunication world. There is also the well documented travails of Anderson Consulting.... This year there has been a crop of accounting scandals. Does the financial world needs stricter regulatory mechanism or is it simply a matter of lax supervision? (more inside)

What the Bertelsmann-Napster deal means.

sylloge — Wed, 01 Nov 2000 02:21:11 -0800

What the Bertelsmann-Napster deal means.
"Hank Barry, chief executive of Napster, has suggested a monthly fee of about $4.95 might be appropriate, but he stressed that fees had not been set." (NYT article; grow up.)