WSJ reporter leaving for proxy firm

Jonathan Weil, a Wall Street Journal reporter widely credited with being the first business journalist to question Enron’s accounting back before the energy company exploded, is leaving the newspaper to join Glass Lewis & Co., a San Francisco-based independent investment advisory firm and proxy advisory firm. Weil was covering financial and accounting fraud at the Journal, and him leaving the world of business journalism is a big loss for the field and the paper.

Here is an online article about Weil from the University of Colorado’s journalism program, from where he graduated.

Here is the release:

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ — Glass, Lewis & Co., LLC, a leading
independent investment research and global proxy advisory firm, today
announced the appointment of Jonathan Weil as managing director and editor of
financial research, effective Feb. 1. Weil will oversee the publishing
efforts of a team of Glass Lewis analysts who specialize in identifying
material company-specific and industry-wide risks for institutional investors.
He will be based in Glass Lewis’ Broomfield, Colo., office and will report to
Lynn E. Turner, Glass Lewis’ managing director of research and the former
chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Weil, 35 years old, joins Glass Lewis from The Wall Street Journal, where
he currently is a reporter covering accounting and financial fraud. He was
credited by the March 2002 edition of Columbia Journalism Review
as the first reporter to challenge Enron Corp.’s accounting practices during the stock-
market bubble. His Sept. 20, 2000, article for the WSJ’s Texas Journal
regional edition, “Energy Traders Cite Gains, But Some Math Is Missing,” cast
a spotlight on Enron and its Houston rivals, Dynegy Inc. and El Paso Corp.,
when their stocks were near their all-time highs, and showed how their
reported profits were of dubious substance.
In 2004, Accounting Today, the accounting profession’s leading trade
paper, named Weil to its list of the Top 100 Most Influential People in
Accounting.
He was the only journalist named to this prestigious list.

The entire release can be read here.

If you’re not familiar with Glass Lewis, they have been involved in the recent Six Flags proxy battle involving Washington Redskins owner Bruce Snyder.