And Weiss responds to Cuban

Forbes.com columnist Gary Weiss responded on his blog last night to comments made by billionaire Mark Cuban about why he criticizes the business journalism on ShareSleuth.com, which Cuban funds.

Weiss wrote, “Ah, gee, shucks. He goes on to say that he’s ‘more than covered my costs with trade ideas brought to me by Chris’–which in my view is not a heck of a lot less sleazy than trading ahead of Shareseluth. I can’t recall Terry McGraw ever asking me for ‘trading ideas’ when I worked at Business Week. This goes back to the view I’ve expressed before, which is that Cuban shouldn’t be allowed within a quarter-mile of a newsroom.

“Also he’s dead wrong on the last point. I turned down a chance to appear on network TV to talk about Sharesleuth not long ago, and I wouldn’t even cooperate off-camera. A reporter for magazine X (Cuban knows what I’m talking about), can attest to how reluctant I was to talk about it for an upcoming article. OK, I did, but reluctantly. I’d have preferred to just rest on my previous items in this blog.

“I just wasn’t interested in giving Sharesleuth any oxygen via publicity (and no, I don’t view my little hobby bloggie as publicity). As I’ve said, Sharesleuth is a flop, both commercially and journalistically. Let it die quietly. But the important thing is, let it die.”

Read more here.