Blog

Overstock CEO resigns: Thought I’d never see the day.

Patrick Byrne, CEO of the online retailer Overstock, resigned today. The story behind it is too bizarre and convoluted to rehash, but this New York Times’ version will give you a good overview of recent events. Over the years,Byrne and his social media sidekick Judd Bagley staged vicious attacks on the reporters who didn’t buy their conspiracy theories. They were effective enough that a star of financial journalism once told me it wasn’t worth writing about Byrne because of all the grief he put reporters through.

The amazing thing is that a guy like Byrne would last so long running a public company while ranting about “Sith Lords,” nefarious short sellers and shifty operators in the Deep State. Check out this story that I wrote about the company 12 years ago. (And yes, this set me up as a Byrne/Bagley target). Continue reading

Sabew honorable mention for investigative reporting

I was honored to hear today that The Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, known as Sabew, awarded me an honorable mention in its “Best in Business” competition in the investigative reporting category. My story, “Finra’s Black Hole,” looked at 30 years of brokerage industry arbitration records to see how women fared when they filed complaints about sexual harassment and gender discrimination. (Answer: Not very well). You can read my story here.

Ongoing Tales From the Boom-Boom Room

WNYC’s Richard Hake spoke with me about the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal and how it relates to my work on sexual harassment on Wall Street. You can hear the interview here.

 

 

National Federation of Press Women Award

The National Federation of Press Women said that I’ve won first place for business writing in its 2017 National Communications Contest.

From the judges: “This writer goes beyond merely simplifying the facts in public documents: the writer shows knowledge and confidence in pressing federal prosecutors and the securities industry self-regulating body with tough questions; the writer shows that sow action against securities “scammers” has a human cost.”

You can read the winning stories about penny-stock scams here and here.