[1][2] Prior to public relations, he wrote extensively about Wall Street, private equity, hedge funds and white-collar crime, most recently for The New York Times.
[6] At the Times, a writing team that included Kouwe was a finalist for a Gerald Loeb Award for their reporting on the Bernard L. Madoff Ponzi scheme in 2009.
[7][8] He was also the paper's lead reporter [citation needed] covering the massive insider trading case centered on the Galleon Group hedge fund and its founder, Raj Rajaratnam.
[9] In 2008, he was co-listed, with Peter Lauria, at #62 on the Silicon Alley 100, compiled by the web site SiliconAlleyInsider.com, for their reporting on Microsoft's failed takeover of Yahoo!
[13][14] The Times's Editor's Note on Kouwe's resignation specified that the original evidence referenced an article about "an asset freeze for members of Bernard L. Madoff’s family."
He explained that his high volume of work ("7,000 words every week") and particular researching and writing style conducted "[i]n the essence of speed" were what led to the occurrences.
[17] Times' standards editor Philip Corbett stated that most of what Kouwe lifted was "pretty banal stuff", like background material.
Scripps School of Journalism, who teaches a class on media ethics, was cited in an article saying Kouwe's resignation was extreme and his explanation was believable.