In the wake of the Hewlett-Packard scandal in which the company admitted it obtained phone records of its board members and business journalists to determine the source of an information leak, MarketWatch columnist Herb Greenberg noted that he never found out who illegally obtained his phone records two years ago.
“I have no evidence that Allied Capital was behind the offense.
“And unlike Hewlett Packard officials, who acknowledged the break-in and apologized to the reporters, Allied officials never had the courtesy to respond to my phone and e-mail inquiries asking them about the situation. They didn’t even contact me after my story on the crime was printed.”
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There appears to be much more to Herb’s pretexting story than just an invasion of his privacy. Earlier this month (November 16) Herb again appeared on CNBC to discuss Allied Capital. Herb used the opportunity to once again raise his unsubstantiated allegations that Allied was involved in illegal acts as he did 2 months earlier in this news publication and as he did originally nearly a year ago.
While Herb tried to satisfy his remarks legally by claiming he had no proof of any Allied wrongdoing CNBC felt compelled to once again clarify Herb’s unfounded allegations the following day to satisfy lawyers. The transcripts of the commentary being identified below:
Thursday Transcripts:
Herb Greenberg, Columnist, MarketWatch.com: “Finally, we have Allied Capital which is the company that I have claimed has pretexted me. They say—well, two years later they said…we don’t, we don’t’ think you have.
But anyway, they are in the middle of a whole lot of investigations, Joe. And they just came out with their 10Q and added some new disclosure about investigations. Again, stock very strong.�
Friday Restatement:
Joe Kernan, Co-Anchor: “All right, we have a quick clarification for you…yesterday at this time, we talked with MarketWatch’s, Herb Greenberg, about several stocks—one of them being, Allied Capital.
Herb admittedly does not have any evidence, at this point, that Allied Capital or anyone associated with that company pretexted him. And Allied Capital has denied any such activities.
Normally, we say MarketWatch and CNBC Contributor…this time we’re just gonna go with MarketWatch.�
Becky Quick, Co-Anchor: “Yeah, when we do a clarification then we’ll go ahead with that.�
With a lack of evidence to support his claims, one can only wonder why Greenberg continues to publicly harass Allied Capital with these baseless allegations and then use the “but I have no proof� as a means of releasing him legally. Clearly Greenberg should be gagged on this subject by CNBC and Marketwatch but that will never happen. They will simply publish clarifications after the fact and let Herb continue using his access to the public to fight this personal battle. It is becoming irresponsible journalism.