Columnist Chris Byron gone from NYPost

Business columnist Chris Byron has apparently written his last column for the New York Post, according to the Naked Shorts web site.

Talking Biz News also received independent confirmation of Byron’s departure from the Post.

Byron was the “scourge of penny-stock flim-flam artistes, somnolent regulators and Martha Stewart,” according to the posting. “The Post declined to renew his contract after Byron declined to broaden the scope of his coverage, according to NakedShorts’ – and the real meejuh’s – best friend, ‘a person familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized blah blah blah.'”

Later, the site stated, “It’s a substantial understatement to say that Byron’s style wasn’t to everybody’s taste, and not just that of his targets. He was often emotional, even obsessive, and sometimes over-reached in making connections. But, at least since Gary Weiss left Business Week, Byron was the only consistent mainstream media presence on the small-cap scam beat, and his departure will raise cheers in boiler rooms from Boca Raton to Broad Street, at a regulatory agency or two, and probably on the floor of The World’s Most Unnecessary Securities Exchangeâ„¢.

“But that’s the business today, an age when advertising insert salesmen have the keys to major metropolitan newspapers. At pixel-time, Byron had not returned an email seeking comment.”

Read more here.