Greetings, fellow Bagehot alumni...

Some 10 months after creating this site, I've finally come up with good raison d'etre for it, thanks to a kick in the pants from Jack Shafer, the media critic at Slate (check out this recent article and you'll see what i mean: http://www.slate.com/id/2155443/?nav=navoa), and encouraging words from Tim Gray (Bagehot class of 2001).

I'd like the Bagehot community to use this bulletin board as a place to comment on good examples of business journalism today, or to point out stories that could have been better, etc.

In short, feel free to become media critics in your area of specialty--business journalism.

To start things off, I propose that we spend the final week of the year nominating the "best in business journalism" for 2006. Yes, I know that's what the Loeb awards are for, but why wait around until the end of June? Let's get to it!

My nominee for "Best Business Story of 2006" goes to the team of reporters at the Wall Street Journal who broke the options-backdating story early this year, and have ridden it hard ever since.

Anyone care to pile on? or disagree, or offer their own suggestions?

Even though this pick seems obvious, I'd like to get other nominations in here, particularly stories that didn't make it onto the national radar screen.

Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is yours!