“So tell me something I don’t already know.” It’s a refrain that every storyteller dreads hearing. And it serves quite well as an admonition to a monthly magazine like ours. We see little value in passing along what our readers can learn elsewhere in a world overflowing with information -- in daily newspapers, on television and on the Internet.
Our readers represent a cross section of business, finance and government officials, and we strive to entertain and enlighten them, to keep them ahead of the curve, breaking news and explaining events in a sophisticated, shrewd manner, with sharp writing that has a strong voice and a powerful reach. We don’t always succeed, but we always try.
Every now and then, the work of the II editorial team is recognized for its excellence. In April, I am pleased to report, the Overseas Press Club of America awarded Senior Contributing Editor David McClintick the Morton Frank Award for Best Business Reporting for his November 2003 cover story, “Inside the Crédit Lyonnais Scandal.” A tour de force of investigative journalism, McClintick’s piece laid out, in a complex narrative of nearly 15,000 words, the crimes committed by Crédit Lyonnais in its 1992 acquisition of Executive Life Insurance Co., and the subsequent cover-up. Along with detailing the full extent of the criminal conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, perjury, forgery and other crimes unearthed by the U.S. government, McClintick was the first journalist to reveal the contents of the 55-count, 195-page July 2003 indictment against the French bank, elements of the French government and several high bank officials.
Staff Writer Rich Blake also told our readers something that most didn’t know in “Misdirected Brokerage,” his groundbreaking study of mutual fund misconduct. In this June 2003 story, named as a finalist in the reporting category of the U.S. National Magazine Awards, Blake revealed previously undisclosed “directed brokerage” arrangements in which illicit payments were made by mutual fund companies to big Wall Street brokerages to sell their funds. His exposé broke the news of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into this once-widespread practice, which has since all but stopped.
David and Rich, and the II magazine team of editors, copy editors and artists who helped bring these stories to life, deserve heartfelt congratulations for their outstanding performance. We hope that work like theirs makes reading this magazine fun and rewarding.
