Journalist urges caution when talking to naked short selling opponents

Former BusinessWeek writer Gary Weiss writes Wednesday that business journalists should use caution when writing to those who oppose naked short selling, as a Seattle Times business reporter’s e-mail has now been posted on a message board.

Weiss writes, “SOP is for journalists to respond to readers emails, but if you do that you risk what happened to a reporter for the Seattle Times named Drew DeSilver. Note this post yesterday on the stock message board for Overstock, which mainly serves as a kind of organizing center for stock promoters, hatchet men on Byrne’s personal payroll and deranged stock market conspiracy theorists.

“DeSilver, who tells me that has never actually written on the subject, made the mistake of responding to an email from a seemingly rational naked shorting conspiracist who gave his name as ‘Shawn Brandom.’ DeSilver made the mistake of disagreeing with Brandom, who retaliated by posting his email and his email address with this message to his fellow loons: ‘GIVE HIM SOME GRIEF!!!!!!'”

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