The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Internet boom" ...
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The Deal Makers
An investigation by the Washington Post revealed that America Online "was using a series of unconventional transactions to sustain the appearance of breakneck growth in ad revenue" -- even after the Internet boom subsided and it merged with Time Warner. " Time Warner executives were "mesmerized by the hundreds of millions of dollars in online advertising pouring into AOL ... (and) even when the bubble popped and dot-coms collapsed, AOL continued to report record-breaking growth in ad revenue, reinforcing its image as the medium of the future and overwhelming any second thoughts from Time Warner shareholders and employees." What Time Warner didn't know was that, "among other things, AOL turned legal disputes into ad deals, converted long-term contracts into one-time balloon payments, shifted revenue from one division to another, bartered ads for computer equipment and sold ads on behalf of eBay while booking all the sales as its own... (The) stories immediately prompted two federal investigations of AOL Time Warner."
Tags: America Online; AOL; Time Warner; AOL Time Warner; Enron; advertising revenue; merger; balloon payments; contracts; Internet boom; dot-coms
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The Great Internet Money Game: How America's Top Financial Firms Reaped Billions from the Net Boom while Investors Got Burned
Business Week looks at how the nation's most respected financial firms made billions of dollars during the internet boom of the late 1990s while their investors posted huge loses.
Tags: Internet; business week; money; financial firms; investing; loses; gains; billions; dollars
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The Great Internet Money Game
Business Week looks at how "America's top financial firms reaped billions from the Net boom, while investors got burned." The investigation reveals that some of the best respected investment bankers - Merrill Lynch, Robertson Stephens, Credit Suisse First Boston and Goldman Sachs - have stayed "behind some of the biggest losers," but still have profited, as "they took their cash up front, grabbing a slice of the dough raised in IPOs." The story details how venture capitalists have neglected old rules of thumbs and - in the words of one venture fund manager - "shamelessly took companies public that never should have been taken public." The report also exposes analysts' lateness in downgrading the stocks of the failing Internet companies.
Tags: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); Wall Street; stock exchange; profits; investors; investment bankers; venture capital; business
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Down and Out in Silicon Valley
Rolling Stone Magazine reports that "It's a land of instant millionaires where mansions grow like toadstools - and one of desperate poverty, widening income disparity and one of the nation's fastest-growing homeless populations....In Silicon Valley it's hard not to feel lucky... But the new economy has not been so generous to people without technical skills or college degrees...And while the divide between the haves and have-nots may be more extreme in Silicon Valley than in other parts of the country right now, that won't last long..."
Tags: Internet economy boom bust family hardship commute shelters property values housing shortage
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For richer and poorer
The information revolution has fueled the economy's long boom. But it has also contributed to the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. The National Journal looks at whether this trend can be reversed.
Tags: Computers; Internet; Hewlett-Packard