Footnoted, a site that site takes a closer look at the things that companies try to bury in their routine SEC filings, specializes in surfacing hidden opportunities and early signs of potential problems.

January’s most egregious goes to (these are direct quotes from a footnoted.com release):

Jan. 11, 2012: Steve Madden Milks his Company for Everything and Then Some More: Steve Madden received a new employment agreement at the beginning of this year that assures him a base salary of more than $5.41 million. The employment agreement runs through Dec. 31, 2023, and it also promises that he will get a raise of approximately $2 million each year. He’s also going to get an “Annual Cash Bonus” and a “New Business Bonus,” plus a grant for restricted shares of stock worth $40 million. But because one $40 million stock grant might not be enough for a guy, there’s also a section cal led an “Additional Restricted Shares Amendment” which gives Madden even more restricted shares of stock worth—you guessed it—another $40 million. Finally, the board agreed to forgive the $3 million loan that Madden borrowed from the company back in 2007.

Jan. 17, 2012: Aon Gives London a Whole New Meaning: Aon Corp., a big insurance brokerage that had been headquartered in Chicago, announced that it planned to move its headquarters to London. And it’s giving CEO Greg Case—just one of several members of the executive ranks the company will pay to relocate—an extra $561,000 a year over and above moving expenses and one-time relocation costs. Showing a curious bit of restraint, though, Aon declared that Case must pay his own telephone and internet bills. London is a very expensive city, to be sure, but we bet that he can get by on what works out to $1,537 a day.

Jan. 13, 2012: Google Gives New Director $1 Million Worth of Stock: In mid-January, Google appointed Diane Greene to its board and a post on its Audit Committee. Greene founded VMWare (VMW) and took it public in 2007; she also sits on the board of Intuit (INTU). Google doubled the initial equity award that it’s paying to Greene, compared to what it paid the last time it appointed non-employee directors (which, admittedly, has been a while—back in 2005). Greene is getting $1 million worth of Google Stock Units (GSUs), as well as the compensation that directors get every year: a $75,000 cash retainer and another $350,000 worth of GSUs.

A screenshot from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel series "A Case of Shattered Trust."

A story by Raquel Rutledge and Rick Barrett that won the Barlett & Steele Silver Award for 2011 has been selected to be part of the “Best Business Writing 2012,” a book to be published in June by Columbia University Press.

Rutledge and Barrett, reporters at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, received the silver award in the 2011 Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism for their series “A Case of Shattered Trust.”

Details in their own words about of their investigation into one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of alcohol wipes describing filthy conditions at the plant nearby are in this behind-the-story account.

Dean Starkman, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review’s The Audit and one of four editors for the Best in Business book, said this about the collection of business writing:

“The Best Business Writing 2012,” is as the name implies, the first of what we’re hoping to be an annual series that collects, well, the best. We want these books to highlight great journalism about business (and finance and
the economy) in all its diversity: from muckraking exposes (like this one) to classic corporate profiles, economics writing, business columns, blog posts, whatever. The publication or medium really doesn’t matter.

We’re now at work collecting — and soliciting — candidates for “BBW2013″. If you-all do, or see, anything we should know about, send me a note.”

Starkman’s co-editors in “The Best Business Writing 2012″ are Martha Hamilton, Ryan Chittum and Felix Salmon.

Eagle Market in Globe opened in the 1920s. This was taken in the 1950s. Photo submitted by Diana Carey Hines

• Arizona’s 100 years in business

Arizona turns 100 on Feb. 14 and a team of print and web journalists have been scurrying for months to pull together fun and educational ways to celebrate the event.

This crowd-sourced package of photos will interest business journalists … or anyone interested in business or the Southwest.

The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com turned to their readers to gather photos representing business in Arizona.

From the editors:

“Our requests for vintage business images to help commemorate Arizona’s 100th birthday on Feb. 14 resulted in a deluge of historic photo submissions from throughout the state.”

Betty Beard, who pulled the project together shared details about photos and other memorabilia that came in from residents: Old photos capture Arizona. “I was touched at how many people dug out photos from scrapbooks, closets, drawers and picture frames and took the time to scan and e-mail them,” Beard said. “Unfortunately, we can only offer a sampling of what is out there.”

Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912. It was the last of the 48 contiguous states to be admitted to the union.

Keep posted at @azcentral on Twitter. I hear that from Feb. 14, followers will be in for a historic treat.

A total of 1,030 entries will be considered for awards, bettering last year’s record entry total of 904, according to a press release from SABEW.

“We’re very gratified by this year’s unprecedented level of interest,” said SABEW’s president, Kevin Noblet, a managing editor at Dow Jones Newswires. “It clearly reflects the growing importance of financial and economic news, both to the public and inside the organizations that produce it.”

Winners will be announced later this month, with the awards presented Saturday, March 17, at SABEW’s 49th annual conference in Indianapolis. The conference will be at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. A tentative schedule for the Indianapolis event is on the SABEW site.

David Brancaccio, PBS.

We’ll chat live with David Brancaccio, a special correspondent for Marketplace’s Economy 4.0 and host of the Marketplace Index, on Tuesday, Jan. 31, from 11:30 a.m-12:15 p.m. ET.

Brancaccio, a broadcaster for 33 years, was previously the anchor of public television’s NOW, an award-winning newsmagazine of investigative reporting and in-depth interviews. He also hosted California Connected.

Before joining PBS, Brancaccio was a Marketplace’s European correspondent based in London. He hosted the public radio program from 1993 to 2003. Among his beats: politics, human rights, national security, the environment, health care, and science policy.

From his Marketplace biography:

“Brancaccio specializes in telling stories important to our economy and our democracy through the eyes of the real people who live in the cross hairs of crucial issues. His accessible yet authoritative approach to investigative reporting and in-depth interviewing earned his work the highest honors in broadcast journalism, including the Peabody, the Columbia-duPont, the Emmy, and the Walter Cronkite awards.

A new version of Brancaccio’s public television special about Main Street as an engine of economic innovation called “Fixing the Future” will soon be a feature-length documentary.  He is author of a book about Americans applying their personal values to their money, entitled “Squandering Aimlessly.”

Brancaccio has a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and a master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University.  He has appeared on CNBC, MSNBC, and BBC television and his newspaper work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the BaltimoreSun, and Britain’s The Guardian.”

Tuesday’s chat will be on CoverItLive.  You can register below and we’ll send you a reminder as the time nears.

Come back on Tuesday with questions for Brancaccio.

Here is some information about the jobs from the news organizations who are searching for reporters.

OIL & GAS INDUSTRY REPORTER, Oklahoma

Description: The Oklahoman and NewsOK.com, a multimedia news operation in Oklahoma City, is looking for a multimedia oil and gas industry reporter to help us expand our coverage of Oklahoma’s energy industry. The applicant should have a minimum of 5 years news experience covering the energy industry, with particular emphasis on the financial, regulatory, environmental and operational areas of the oil and gas business. Please send resume to jobs@opubco.com or apply online at: Oil and Gas Reporter.

Salary Range: Commensurate with experience
Contact E-Mail: aknudsen@opubco.com
Mailing Address:
9000 N Broadway, Oklahoma City, OK 73114

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS, FELLOWS, Pittsburgh, Pa.

PublicSource.org is filling two immediate openings for investigative reporters. These are great jobs in a great city, says editor Sharon Walsh. PublicSource Jobs.

PublicSource is an independent news organization supported by The Pittsburgh Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, the R.K. Mellon Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to do in-depth reporting in the public interest.

More from Walsh about the jobs:

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS:

PublicSource, a non-profit news website focusing on original investigative reporting about important issues in Pittsburgh and the Western Pennsylvania region, has an immediate opening for two investigative reporters. The reporters will pursue stories of significance to the region, with a focus on holding the powerful accountable.

Successful candidates will be high-energy, passionate investigative reporters with proven skills in conceiving, reporting and writing investigative pieces that provoke change. You should also be unafraid of risk, excited about helping to build a website that is part of the future of journalism and able to juggle enterprise and investigative stories.

The ability to work well with others is a given for an enterprise that values collaboration both within the newsroom and with other media partners.

We are based in Pittsburgh, a city with a great deal more to offer than the Steelers. It is often on the top 10 lists of most livable cities, enjoys a low cost of living and has a cultural life that other cities envy.

Benefits include excellent health insurance (medical, dental and vision), life insurance and participation in our 403-B retirement program. We’re a non-profit, but offer a salary that is commensurate with your value and experience as a journalist.

Please send a resume, cover letter and writing samples to Sharon Walsh, swalsh@publicsource.org, with the job title in the subject line. Send all clips in .doc or pdf format.

FELLOWS POSITIONS:

PublicSource, a non-profit news website focusing on original investigative reporting about important issues in Pittsburgh and the Western Pennsylvania region, has an immediate opening for two investigative reporting fellows. These will be full-time jobs for recent graduates or Master’s grads who are interested in investigative reporting. They must come highly recommended and have shown that they are interested in investigative and enterprise work. They will work closely with the editor and two full-time investigative reporters that PublicSource is in the process of hiring, as well as with the experienced reporters of our media partners.

These will be rotating, two-year positions and will pay $35,500 a year and will include health benefits and two weeks of vacation. Interested candidates should send a cover letter, resume clips and three references with contact information to Sharon Walsh, swalsh@publicsource.org, with the title Fellows position in the subject line. Clips must be in .doc or pdf formats.

“If you listen to commercial radio, this is not news: Katy Perry had a huge year. She went No.1 five times. She was the most played artist on the radio. But the record industry is so weird, it’s hard to know whether this kind of success translates into huge amounts of money.

So we asked.”

 

And ask she did.  Chace put together a very entertaining and informative radio story that was obviously sparked from her own curiosity about the music industry.   She mixed, numbers, music, humor and comes up with a smart and entertaining story that was the highlight of my drive-time today.

See what you think: Text story,  Katy Perry’s Perfect Game |  Listen to the story.

Dec. 30, 2011 update: And the winner is: “This year, footnoted readers awarded the top prize to Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and its former CEO, Léo Apotheker, who managed to get paid very handsomely for failing so spectacularly.”

Voting is open for footnoted‘s annual Worst Footnote of the Year contest. Somehow, I think they mean the most outrageous.

Michelle Leder, founder of Footnoted, has been running the contest since 2005. She gives you a head start by naming five nominees from this year’s reporting.

Past recipients of the award include the jet-setting high school student at Quest (Q) and the CEO map collection at Chesapeake Energy (CHK).

This year’s nominees are:

• MF Global (old ticker: MF) agreeing to pay then-CEO Jon Corzine a $1.5 million retention bonus months before the company imploded.
• Clear Channel Media Holdings (CCMO) paying $3 million a year to a company controlled by Bob Pittman so that Pittman can fly in a Mystere Falcon 900 that Pittman owns for both business and personal use.
• Leo Apotheker collecting around $25 million in severance and other benefits, including relocation back to France or Belgium after less than a year on the job (Footnoted didn’t write about this one only because it was so widely reported. Still, the team felt it deserved to be a nominee.).
• IBM’s outgoing CEO Samuel Palmisano becoming eligible for as much as $170 million in retirement benefits, just by waiting until he was past 60 to announce his retirement.
• Nabors Industries agreeing to pay outgoing CEO Eugene Isenberg $100 million in severance on his way out the door (another one that Footnoted didn’t write about because it was widely reported).

Voting is now open. Footnoted will announce the winner (or, depending on your view of the world, loser) on Friday, Dec. 30. The stakes are high: Footnoted will give away a free month of footnotedPro to one winner selected at random.

Results of ProPublica’s 2011 Reader Survey

According to the participants, their primary source of news is:

• Online – 68%, compared to 605 in May 2010 survey and 53% in December 2008.
• Print newspapers – 13%, down from 19% last year and 25% in 2008.

ProPublica readers use social media: 74% regularly use Facebook, 38% Twitter, 37% Google+ and 34% LinkedIn.

Richard Tofel, who wrote up the survey for ProPublica, said, “The results aren’t scientific, but the large sample does likely indicate that they’re meaningful.”

Bloomberg Blog tells us today that Bloomberg.com is going to focus on reporting on sustainability from the business executives’ point of view.

The new section will be in addition to The Grid, a daily blog about energy issues and the environment.  The business focus on sustainability will look at environmental issues as long-term strategies in the corporate world, efforts to gain a “competitive advantage in innovation, efficiency, reputation, and ultimately performance.”

From the blog post:

“The goal is to uncover what businesses are doing, or what they need to be doing, to thrive as global competition intensifies for strategic resources. We feel this is a unique yet critical way to report on sustainability issues – from inside the companies who are defining it.”

The Bloomberg Sustainability Team will be led by editor Eric Roston, author of “The Carbon Age.” You can follow him on Twitter: @eroston