LA Times biz columnist defends TheStreet reporter

Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik comes to the defense Tuesday of TheStreet.com reporter Adam Feuerstein, who was accused during the weekend by Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein of colluding with short sellers to bring down a biotech stock.

Hiltzik writes, “Pearlstein also states that the posts ‘curiously have also coincided with the spikes in short trading.’ (Feuerstein’s editor, Janet Guyon, says TheStreet has asked the Washington Post for a retraction of Pearlstein’s piece. ‘We stand by our reporter, his work and his integrity,’ she says.)

“Pearlstein asserts that reading Feuerstein’s posts about Northwest would leave ‘mainline traditional journalists [like myself] appalled.’

“I can’t agree. Feuerstein’s posts strike me as well-informed about an abstruse topic and aggressively skeptical, which is proper. I don’t know Feuerstein and never heard his name before it was bandied by Pearlstein. He picks apart company claims and press releases relentlessly, but that’s his job at TheStreet.com. It’s not impossible that he’s working for short-sellers, but his work does not appear to be at all inconsistent with sound journalism.

“Yet CREW’s executive director, Melanie Sloan, went so far as to tell me, ‘Adam Feuerstein is doing someone’s bidding, is what I think. And I don’t know if he’s being paid for it. That’s what I want [the SEC] to look into.’

“This is incredibly irresponsible for someone to imply, with no evidence. CREW and Pearlstein both should back off.”

Read more here.