Product Description

This is the story of Rebecca Smith and John R. Emshwiller, the two reporters who led the Wall Street Journal's reporting on Enron and uncovered the unorthodox partnerships at the heart of the scandal through skill, luck, and relentless determination.

It all started in August 2001when Emshwiller was assigned to write a supposedly simple article on the unexpected resignation of Enron CEO Jeff Skilling. During his research, Emshwiller uncovered a buried reference to an off-balance-sheet partnership called LJM. Little did he know, this was the start of a fast and furious ride through the remarkable downfall of a once highly-prized company.

Written in an intense, fast paced narrative style, 24 Days tells the gripping story of the colossal collapse of what would become the world's most notorious corporation. The reader follows along as Smith and Emshwiller continue to uncover new partnerships and self-dealing among the highest levels of Enron's management. As they publish articles detailing their findings in the Journal, Wall Street and individual investors have a crisis of confidence and start selling Enron stock at unprecedented levels of volume. In the end - 24 short days later - Enron had completely collapsed, erasing 16 years of growth and losing $19 billion in market value while watching the stock drop from $33.84 to $8.41. Not only was the company destroyed, but investors and retired employees were completely wiped out-all the while Enron executives were collecting millions of dollars.

Climaxing with this 24-day period, this book shows the reporter's-eye view of a David-and-Goliath battle between journalists and a giant corporation. Each day a new story uncovered another fact; each day the company issued denials. And when the investigative stories reached critical mass and momentum, the stock market cast its final vote of no confidence. In the tradition of Indecent Exposure and Barbarians at the Gate, two other gripping narratives that began as a series of Wall Street Journal stories and ended up as books that defined an era, 24 Days brings the importance of great investigative journalism to life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #117191 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Released on: 2004-10-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
"Featuring unnamed sources, conflicts with editors and angry phone calls with Enron staffers..Think All the President's Men." (Associated Press )

Even though 24 Days has the feel of a true crime book, the business lessons within it are eye-opening. (Jack Covert, 1-800-CEO-READ )

a page-turner...a riveting behind-the-scenes look at investigative reporting at its highest level (Forbes.com )

"A fascinating tale that reveals as much about the journalistic process as about Enron." (Washington Post )

"A good story that goes well beyond the common narrative of a company of excess" (Houston Chronicle )

"[A] chronicle of greed run wild." (Denver Post )

"Gripping...24 Days is a fast-paced, enjoyable read and the best of the Enron books yet." (USA Today )

"A gripping first-person narrative." (Fast Company )

About the Author
Rebecca Smith is a national energy reporter in the Los Angeles bureau of the Wall Street Journal. In 2001 she won the Gerald Loeb Award for beat reporting for her energy coverage. In 1996, she shared a Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished financial and economics reporting.

Customer Reviews

Terrific reporting on an important story
This is a terrific book. It should be read by anyone who invests because it will give you a better understanding of not only the Enron case, but of the problem of corrupt executives playing fast and loose with their responsibilities to the investors who employ them. Remember, the investors own the company, not the executives. They are hired help who are supposed to look after the interests of those who have put up hard cash for stock in the corporation and who are taking the financial risk as residual claimants. (Of course, those taking risks include the employees who probably have retirement investments in the company). It is a lively read and provides a great deal of valuable information along with the intrigue and outrageous revelations.

There are three story lines that flow like counterpoint. I found them riveting, but I enjoy reading about business. (You probably do as well, or why are you reading about this book?)

First, we follow Rebecca Smith and John Emshwiller as they track down leads in developing news stories about the sudden resignation of Enron's young CEO, Jeff Skilling. This seemingly minor story develops into the amazing and unexpected collapse of Enron as its corrupt financial dealings and improper accounting practices are exposed. We also follow the race between the authors as reporters for the Wall Street Journal racing against the New York Times, the LA Times, and the national TV news programs to get the story out first.

Second, we get the story of Enron and how Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and especially Andy Fastow worked hard to keep the true state of the company hidden from investors and regulators. We see how they drew others into their plans and punished those who wouldn't go along. The story makes clear how Andersen was brought down by an account team that allowed their lust for tens of millions of dollars in consulting fees to corrupt their accounting responsibilities.

Third, we see how both the climb and collapse of Enron affected average and honest people just trying to do their jobs. It was easy to get caught up in the rise of Enron and to believe in what was going on because the sickeningly corrupt practices were kept hidden for so long. Some of these executives, who reaped untold millions in personal rewards, might argue that everything was disclosed as required by letter of the regulations. But it seems to me that it was all just a way of lying while going to the right up to the edge of violating the letter of the law and then slipping over. Enron and Andersen management ended up not being as slick as they thought and ended up destroying both companies and hurting tens of thousands of innocent folks.

Another virtue of this books is that it is straight reporting. Rather than being advocacy journalism, it reports the facts of the case as they unfolded. I like this approach a great deal and think it strengthens the message of the book. You are free to make your own interpretation of the events presented. The authors do express their own reactions to certain events and revelations, but do not draw final conclusions of guilt or innocence. Nor do they try to apportion blame, although they do report comments and judgments of others who do.

Really, I wish this book would be read widely because it would help potential investors realize the need they have to pay close attention to the management team of companies they choose to invest in. They also need to educate themselves as much as possible on the industries and accounting practices of not only the companies they invest in, but also their competitors. Such awareness can help set off the "something isn't right" detector. Unfortunately, when things appear to be going well hard questions are usually not asked and when things fall apart it is usually too late to start asking.

This is a fine book that will have a permanent place on your shelf of business books.

Insightful and Disturbing
24 Days reads like a John Grisham novel with the (naturally) two journalists as the protaginists sifting through the piles of obfuscation to get to the truth. Ultimately, the book shows that those who raided Enron were nothing more than common crooks, con men and money grubbing amoralists whose only interest was lining their own pockets. Sadly, justice has yet to be (if it ever will) served against many who were involved and the connections between Enron and current Administration remain woefully underreported.

What I can say is that the two journalists have done a great job of showing how the house of cards fell down. My only criticism, and it's a minor one, is that to the layperson, many of the financial terms will be hard to understand and the complex transactions that hid the billions in debt Enron had can be difficult to follow. Otherwise, this is highly recommended reading for people who want to know what crony capitalism is all about.

Interesting book, but fails to really exploit its strength
This is a pretty decent book. It gives a fairly good overview of what went wrong with Enron and a fairly good look at the process the authors worked through in reporting on Enron for the Wall Street Journal. So, why don't I rate it a 5-star book? Mainly because it doesn't excel in either area. As an Enron story, it's far less revealing than "The Smartest Guys in the Room". As a book about what it's like to be reporters breaking a huge story, I think it fails to convey the sense of excitement and accomplishment they must have felt. So, in my opinion, they produced a good, interesting book that fell far short of its potential.

My memory of the events unfolding around Enron's spectacular failure places The Wall Street Journal in a leading role in terms of pressuring the company to start to be more forthcoming in its public dealings. Surely there was a lot of intrigue and tension involved with being the reporters driving this story. But this book doesn't really give the reader a feeling about what that was like. Maybe it was as nearly routine as the feel of the book suggests, but I have to believe it was more gripping than that. And as far as telling the Enron failure story, this book gives a decent overview, but there are better chronicles of that story.

So, was I disappointed that I read this book? No, it was pretty good. I just felt it could have been a lot more. I think I'm coming to the conclusion that writers for periodicals don't tend to write the best books. They're good at "just the facts, Ma'am" storytelling, but to deliver a really outstanding book, a writer has to be able to use the larger canvas to paint pictures that he can place the reader in. These authors don't do that and, I'd say that unless you're pretty interested in the Enron story, you could skip this one.