Gretchen C. Morgenson (born January 2, 1956) is an AmericanPulitzer Prize-winningjournalist notable as longtime writer of theMarket Watch column for the Sunday "Money & Business" section ofThe New York Times.[1][2] In November, 2017, she moved from theTimes toThe Wall Street Journal.
She worked as an assistant editor withVogue magazine, eventually becoming a writer and financial columnist. In 1981 she co-authored the bookThe Woman's Guide to the Stock Market and that same year joined theWall Streetstockbrokerage,Dean Witter Reynolds where she remained until January 1984. She returned to writing on financial matters atMoney magazine and in late 1986 accepted an offer fromForbes magazine to work as an editor and an investigative business writer. In mid-1993, she leftForbes magazine to become the executive editor atWorth magazine but in September 1995 took on the job of press secretary for thePresidentialelection campaign ofSteve Forbes following which she was appointed assistant managing editor atForbes magazine.[1]
In May 1998, Morgenson became the assistant business and financial editor atThe New York Times. She has written about the conflicts of interests betweenfinancial analysts and their employers who generate income money from the companies that the analysts assess.
Beginning in 2005, Morgenson has been focusing onexecutive compensation packages being paid by American companies that she asserts have reached levels far in excess of what can be justified to shareholders.
In 2006, Morgenson broke a story about a Wall Street analyst (Matthew Murray) who was fired shortly after he reported emails to Congress concerning potential violations of SEC regulation AC by the investment bank (Rodman & Renshaw) that he worked for at the time. The emails allegedly documented that the investment bank wouldn't let the analyst lower his rating, or have his name removed from coverage, of an investment banking client. A subsequent article by Morgenson highlighted a letter she obtained from the Senate Finance Committee in which Senator Grassley stated that the investment bank's chairman (GeneralWesley Clark) had acknowledged to his staff that the analyst had been fired from the investment bank as a result of reporting the emails to Congress.[3] Rodman was subsequently fined $315,000 for “supervisory and other violations related to the interaction between the firm’s research and investment banking functions.”[4]
In 2009,The Nation called Morgenson "The Most Important Financial Journalist of Her Generation".[5] In 2002 she won the Pulitzer Prize for her "trenchant and incisive" coverage of Wall Street.[1] She has appeared onBill Moyers Journal,[6] andCharlie Rose.[7]
In November, 2017,Wall Street Journal investigations editor Michael Siconolfi announced that Morgenson was joining the paper's investigative team as a senior special writer, working closely also with reporters in the money and investing group and the financial enterprise group.[8]
