Columbia Journalism Review ends The Audit

Columbia Journalism Review has decided to pull the plug on The Audit, the online section of the journalism magazine that critiqued the financial press and examined financial media models.

The magazine will still cover those topics, however.

In an email to Talking Biz News, deputy editor Brent Cunningham wrote:

We decided that, while we of course will continue to cover the media business, and we will of course cover financial/economic stories as warranted — just as we do with sports stories, ethics stories, etc. — we no longer wanted to devote an entire wing of our newsroom to only that.

The decision coincides with the departure of the two staff members — Ryan Chittum and Dean Starkman — of The Audit in recent weeks.

Starkman left to become the Wall Street reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

Chittum sent an email to colleagues this week saying that he will be working on a project for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. He will become a contributing editor come February but won’t be doing day-to-day stuff.