Q&A with ShareSleuth head Carey

Former St. Louis Post-Dispatch business reporter Christopher Carey, who left the paper earlier this month to start a web site called ShareSleuth.com to write about companies that is being funded by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, was interviewed on the Media Orchard site about the new venture.

Among other things, Carey said that he has received dozens of offers from people who want to write for the site.

In addition, Carey said: “Trading on information uncovered by Sharesleuth.com was Mark’s idea. At first, I questioned whether it would be too great of a conflict of interest. I concluded that the potential for public benefit far exceeds the potential for private gain. If Sharesleuth.com exposes fraudulent companies and Mark Cuban uses profits from trades to finance more investigative reporting, then I’m OK with that. We could have gone with a subscription model, but that would have limited the public’s access to the information. And accepting advertising, especially from financial-services companies, would create its own set of potential conflicts. This wouldn’t even be an issue if we were calling this an investment newsletter, where trading and disclosure are fairly common practice. But I still view this as journalism. I’m going to pursue stories on the basis of journalistic merit, public impact and entertainment value, and write and report those stories the same way I always have. I believe that the end result will speak for itself.”

Read more here.