Conspiracy theorists and revealing sources

Marketwatch columnist Herb Greenberg, a lightning rod if there ever was one for people criticizing the relationship between business journalists and short-selling investors, responds on his blog about how some of these people want him to reveal an anonymous source.

Greenberg wrote, “I’ve written quite a bit about the McCarthyism of financial markets in the wake of attacks by conspiracy theorists of journalists, short-sellers and others who dare point out possible problems with public companies. In my blog over the weekend, several of those conspiracy theorists, including an alleged journalist, attempted to smear my recent posts here questioning whether a key witness in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings into short-selling and independent research had a relationship with Overstock. They contended they knew who gave me a document, that the person who gave me the document was conflicted and that I should’ve disclosed the source because of the conflict.

“Never mind that I don’t disclose anonymous sources – conflicted or otherwise. (As much as I’d like to disclose more information about the source to make them look even sillier, I will refrain; a non-disclosure policy is a non-disclosure policy.)

“Reality, however, is this: No matter what the source of information or documents might be – conflicted or otherwise – ain’t nobody’s business but my own. All I care about is the accuracy of the information. In the case of the story in question, it was accurate. (At least I haven’t heard from the company suggesting otherwise; in fact, Overstock CEO Patrick Bryne emailed me after reading the story and didn’t say anything about the story being inaccurate.)”

Read more here.