James Mark Pittman (October 25, 1957 - November 25, 2009) was a financial

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

covering

corporate finance Corporate finance is an area of finance that deals with the sources of funding, and the capital structure of businesses, the actions that managers take to increase the Value investing, value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and analy ...

and

derivative In mathematics, the derivative is a fundamental tool that quantifies the sensitivity to change of a function's output with respect to its input. The derivative of a function of a single variable at a chosen input value, when it exists, is t ...

markets. He was awarded several prestigious journalism awards, the

Gerald Loeb Award The Gerald Loeb Awards, also referred to as the Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, is a recognition of excellence in journalism, especially in the fields of business, finance and the economy. The award was e ...

, the

George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

, a

New York Press Club The New York Press Club, sometimes ''NYPC'', is a nonprofit membership organization that promotes journalism in the New York metropolitan area, New York City metropolitan area. It is unaffiliated with any government organization and abstains from ...

award, the Hillman Prize and several New York

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

awards.

Biographical details

Pittman was born in

Kansas City, Kansas Kansas City (commonly known as KCK) is the third-most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is an inner suburb of the older and more populous Kansas City, Missouri, after which it is named. As ...

. Standing , he was a

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and typically line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and so back up the defensive linemen. They play closer to the line ...

and first baseman on his high school teams.Bob Ivry
"Mark Pittman, Reporter Who Challenged Fed Secrecy, Dies at 52"
Bloomberg News (November 30, 2010). Retrieved March 7, 2011 After attending engineering classes, he graduated in 1981 with a degree in

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

from the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is a city in and the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70 in Kansas, Interstate 70, between the Kansas River ...

. He has a daughter, Maggie, from his first marriage. He met his second wife, Laura Fahrenthold of

Rochester, New York Rochester is a city in and the county seat, seat of government of Monroe County, New York, United States. It is the List of municipalities in New York, fourth-most populous city and 10th most-populated municipality in New York, with a populati ...

, also a journalist, in 1994. Five years after moving to

Yonkers Yonkers () is the List of municipalities in New York, third-most populous city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and the most-populous City (New York), city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County. A centrally locate ...

from

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, they opened an art gallery there in 2005.Jennifer Medina
"Brooklynites Find and Fill a Culture Gap in Yonkers"
''The New York Times'' (June 6, 2005). Retrieved March 10, 2011Marek Fuchs

''The New York Times'' (June 12, 2005). Retrieved March 10, 2011 The name of the gallery, Y.O.H. Gallery, which stood for "Yonkers on

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudson Rodrigues dos Santos, Brazilian f ...

", was an attempt to blend the city's urban culture with phrasing suggestive of more affluent towns on the Hudson further north. Pittman suffered a fatal heart attack in November, 2009. His wife spent four summers spreading his ashes on 31,000 miles of cross country/Canada RV trips with their two daughters. Her love story/memoir
THE PINK STEERING WHEEL CHRONICLES
was published released in June 2018 by Hatherleigh Press/Penguin Random House.

Career

Pittman started out as a police-beat reporter for the '' Coffeyville Journal'' in

Coffeyville, Kansas Coffeyville is a city in southeastern Montgomery County, Kansas, United States, located along the Verdigris River in the state's southeastern region. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 8,826. Coffeyville is the most pop ...

Short biography of Mark Pittman
UCLA Anderson School of Management. Retrieved March 7, 2011 before moving to Rochester, where he worked for a year at the '' Democrat & Chronicle''. From 1985 to 1997, he worked as a reporter, editor and bureau chief at the ''

Times Herald-Record The ''Times Herald-Record'', often referred to as ''The Record'' or ''Middletown Record'' in its coverage area, is an American daily newspaper published in Middletown, New York, covering the northwest suburbs of New York City. It covers Orange, ...

'' in

Middletown, New York Middletown is the largest Administrative divisions of New York#City, city in Orange County, New York, Orange County, New York, United States. It lies in New York's Hudson Valley region, near the Wallkill River and the foothills of the Shawangunk ...

.Doyle Murphy
"Former Record reporter, editor Mark Pittman dies at age 52"
''Times Herald-Record'' (November 29, 2009). Retrieved March 7, 2011 He had a reputation there for being intimidating, relentless, funny and brilliant. He joined

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg T ...

in 1997, where he wrote about finance,

private equity Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public; instead it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the co ...

mergers and acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorpt ...

, energy markets, politics and economics. Commenting on Pittman's sense of humor, Congressman Brad Miller wrote in the Huffington Post.

2008 financial crisis

In the summer of 2007, Pittman wrote stories predicting the collapse of the

banking system A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

.Amanda Ernst
"Mark Pittman, Bloomberg Reporter Who Predicted Credit Crisis, Sued Fed, Dies"
Fishbowl NY (November 30, 2009). Retrieved March 8, 2011 His article "S&P, Moody’s Hide Rising Risk on $200 Billion of Mortgage Bonds" was excoriated by Portfolio.com in an unsigned post, which was later reversed in a signed apology.Felix Salmon
"Mark Pittman was right"
Reuters blog (November 28, 2009). Retrieved March 9, 2011J. Jennings Moss
"A Business Reporter's Death"
Portfolio.com blog (November 28, 2009). Retrieved March 8, 2011 He was instead praised for "doing the kind of provocative journalism that treads new ground and rings alarms." Pittman said that his early experience dealing with police gave him a "big BS detector" because he was lied to so much by the police, the victims, and those helping the victims.Ryan Chittum
"Audit Interview: Mark Pittman"
''Columbia Journalism Review''. ''The Audit'' (February 27, 2009). Retrieved March 8, 2011 He had to sort through all the lies to get to the real story, which was different from the one he was being told. One journalist and friend called Pittman's style of reporting "Hypocrisy laid bare; it’s simple accountability reporting, albeit done with a high degree of technical skill."Dean Starkman
"The Pittman Way"
''Columbia Journalism Review'' (November 30, 2009). Retrieved March 8, 2011 In 2008, he was part of the team that won a Gerald Loeb Award in the News Service category for a five-part series called "Wall Street's Faustian Bargain." The Loeb award is the highest accolade in financial journalism. Pittman's lead story, called “Subprime Securities Market Began as 'Group of 5' Over Chinese” explained how precarious the financial markets were, that if a mere 5% of U.S. mortgage borrowers missed their monthly payments, it could lead to a worldwide freeze in lending. Pittman broke a number of major financial stories, including that of how

Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many internationa ...

Merrill Lynch Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, doing business as Merrill, and previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investm ...

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in 42 countries and more than 80,000 employees, the firm's clients in ...

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (, ) is a Germany, German multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. ...

and others gained from the bailout of

AIG American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American multinational finance and insurance corporation with operations in more than 80 countries and jurisdictions. As of 2023, AIG employed 25,200 people. The company operates through three core ...

. He also broke the story about former

Treasury Secretary The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...

Henry Paulson Henry "Hank" Merritt Paulson Jr. (born March 28, 1946) is an American investment banker and financier who served as the 74th United States secretary of the treasury from 2006 to 2009. Prior to his role in the Department of the Treasury, Paulson ...

's involvement in creating the

subprime mortgage crisis The American subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010, contributing to the 2008 financial crisis. It led to a severe economic recession, with millions becoming unemployed and many busines ...

when he was

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

Sues Federal Reserve

Around September – October 2008, as the financial meltdown was taking place, Pittman and his Bloomberg colleagues, including Bob Ivry, were covering the

bailout A bailout is the provision of financial help to a corporation or country which otherwise would be on the brink of bankruptcy. A bailout differs from the term ''bail-in'' (coined in 2010) under which the bondholders or depositors of global syst ...

story as it was happening and they started wondering what they could do to show the big picture. They took a

whiteboard A whiteboard (also known as marker board, dry-erase board, dry-wipe board, and pen-board) is a glossy, usually white surface for making non-permanent markings. Whiteboards are analogous to blackboards, but with a smoother surface allowing for ...

and began to list all the emergency and lending programs that were being guaranteed to the banks.Alison Stewart
Interview with Bob Ivry
PBS/WNET video. "Need to know". "The true cost of the bank bailout" (September 3, 2010). Retrieved March 7, 2011 They discovered the amount going to prop up the

financial system A financial system is a system that allows the exchange of funds between financial market participants such as lenders, investors, and borrowers. Financial systems operate at national and global levels. Financial institutions consist of comple ...

dwarfed the $700

billion Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: * 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the most common sense of the word in all varieties of ...

Troubled Asset Relief Program The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a program of the United States government to purchase toxic assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector that was passed by Congress and signed into law by U.S. Presi ...

(TARP). It added up to $12.8

trillion ''Trillion'' is a number with two distinct definitions: *1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million 1,000,000, million, or (ten to the twelfth Exponentiation, power), as defined on the long and short scales, short scale. This is now the meaning in bot ...

Bob Ivry
"Fed Loses Bid for Review of Bailout Disclosure Ruling"
Bloomberg News (August 23, 2010). Retrieved March 10, 2011One trillion is a one with twelve zeros. Most calculators cannot display the number because it has 13 digits and most calculators only allow ten. and it wasn't clear in all cases where the money was going. The

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of ...

alone had programs adding up to $7.7 trillion, including the bailouts of

Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi (Style (visual arts), stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services company based in New York City. The company was formed in 1998 by the merger of Citicorp, t ...

and

. The

Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry; in a business context, corporate treasury. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be ...

had an additional $2.7 trillion, including the $700 billion for TARP, $24 billion in tax breaks for banks, the $168 billion Bush stimulus and the $787 billion Obama stimulus packages. The

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a State-owned enterprises of the United States, United States government corporation supplying deposit insurance to depositors in American commercial banks and savings banks. The FDIC was cr ...

(FDIC) had another $2 trillion in programs. Not all the money was spent, but much was in guarantees to the banks at taxpayer expense, against future losses so the banks wouldn't fail. A number of the programs at the Federal Reserve were unclear as to who was getting funds and what sort of collateral the government was getting in return for the loans. Pittman decided he wanted to find out who was borrowing from the Federal Reserve, how much they were borrowing and what kind of collateral the Fed was getting in return. He filed a

Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act (United States) of 1966 * F ...

(FOIA) request to gain records about taxpayer-financed policies that were being withheld from the public, to wit, where the Fed had lent 2 trillion taxpayer dollars and what it was getting in return. The Fed denied the request, he appealed and they denied it again. Saying "It's not

Ben Bernanke Ben Shalom Bernanke ( ; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Federal Reserve, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Insti ...

's money, it's ''our'' money", Pittman then decided to sue the Fed in federal court, making headlines as the first person to ever sue the Federal Reserve. Pittman and his colleague Craig Torres filed the suit in conjunction with Bloomberg News. On August 24, 2009, Judge Loretta A. Preska ruled the Fed had "improperly withheld" the information and gave it five days to turn the information over to Bloomberg. The Fed was rebuffed twice in

appellate court An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear a case upon appeal from a trial court or other lower tribunal. Appel ...

, but on August 27, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals granted the Fed's request to delay implementation of the ruling until October 19 so it may appeal to the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

. In September 2009, after the initial ruling in Bloomberg's favor, the Clearing House Association, LLC, a group of 20 of the largest commercial banks, joined the lawsuit. It filed an appeal to the Supreme Court on October 26, 2010, but the Fed did not join the appeal. Several news organizations have filed

amicus brief An amicus curiae (; ) is an individual or organization that is not a party to a legal case, but that is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. Whether an ''amic ...

s in support of Bloomberg. , though Pittman has since died, The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled on March 19, 2010, that the Fed must release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program launched primarily after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The ruling upholds a decision of a lower-court judge, who in August ordered that the information be released.

Documentary film ''American Casino''

His efforts drew the attention of

Leslie Leslie may refer to: * Leslie (name), a name and list of people with the given name or surname, including fictional characters Families * Clan Leslie, a Scottish clan with the motto "grip fast" * Leslie (Russian nobility), a Russian noble family ...

and

Andrew Cockburn Andrew Myles Cockburn ( ; born 7 January 1947) is a British journalist and the Washington, D.C., editor of ''Harper's Magazine''. His books and articles are principally about national security, and he has produced documentary films. He has wri ...

, who then featured him prominently in their documentary about the collapse of the subprime market.Bill Weber
Review of ''American Casino''
''Slant'' (May 3, 2009). Retrieved March 8, 2011 The title of the unnarrated film, '' American Casino'', comes from something Pittman says in the beginning of the film. It begins with a dissection of bank

deregulation Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a ...

, largely by Pittman, and continues with a "thriller-like exposition" of the precarious financial boom built on new homeowners, often minorities, who were charged hidden

escrow An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party (the stakeholder or escrow agent) receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transact ...

costs in documents they didn't understand.

Recognition and awards

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

winner and economist

Joseph Stiglitz Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, political activist, and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2 ...

called Pittman "one of the great financial journalists of our time.”

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

winning financial journalist Gretchen Morgenson called him "a giant", saying that "His investigative work during the crisis set the standard for other reporters everywhere." A former critic,

Felix Salmon Felix Salmon (born 1972) is a British/American financial journalist, formerly of ''Conde Nast Portfolio, Portfolio Magazine'' and ''Euromoney'' and a former finance blogger for Reuters, where he analyzed economic and occasionally social issues in ...

, wrote, "His loss to the profession is irreplaceable." Pittman was the recipient of numerous awards for his work. * Six New York State Associated Press awards on subjects ranging from an investigation into the deaths of nine children in an elementary school building collapse to coverage of the 25th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival * 2008 Gerald Loeb Award for News Services for "Wall Street's Faustian Bargain" * 2009 George Polk Award * 2009 New York Press Club Journalism Award for newsradio, "Fed Defies Transparency" * 2010 National Headliner Award for business news coverage, "Lehman's Lessons" (first place) * 2010 Hillman Prize for newspaper journalism, "The Fight for Transparency"2010 Hillman Prize Winners
The Sidney Hillman Foundation. Retrieved March 8, 2011

Selected articles

* Mark Pittman
"Paulson's Focus on 'Excesses' Shows Goldman Gorged (Update1)"
Bloomberg News (November 5, 2007). Retrieved March 8, 2011 * * Mark Pittman
"Subprime Securities Market Began as 'Group of 5' Over Chinese"
Bloomberg News (December 17, 2007).

winning article * Mark Pittman
"Goldman, Merrill Collect Billions After Fed's AIG Bailout Loans"
Bloomberg News (September 29, 2008). Retrieved March 8, 2011

Footnotes

References

External links

* , "Another Writedown For Banks" (April 3, 2009). Retrieved March 8, 2011
''American Casino'' news
Official website. Retrieved March 8, 2011 * Jason Linkins

''Huffington Post'' (November 30, 2009). Retrieved March 8, 2011 {{DEFAULTSORT:Pittman, Mark American male journalists 20th-century American journalists 1957 births 2009 deaths Writers from Kansas City, Kansas George Polk Award recipients Gerald Loeb Award winners for News Service, Online, and Blogging American business and financial journalists