Earlier this week, with his team battling in its first ever trip to the NBA finals, Mark Cuban, new media billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, skipped out on the Tenth Annual Webby awards celebration. Which is not to say that Cuban has completely forsaken his Internet-side seat for his courtside one.
On Tuesday, various Web sites reported that Cuban is financing a new blog that will focus on investigative business reporting.
“Mark Cuban is the sole investor in Sharesleuth.com, a new journalism venture founded by business reporter Christopher Carey that will start to go live next month,” reported Paidcontent.org. “Cuban’s involvement was included in the internal announcement that Carey is leaving the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to work on Sharesleuth, which will focus on stock fraud and executive malfeasance on the national and international level.”
In the aftermath of the announcement, various bloggers hailed the news as a good omen for the blogosphere and a potential model for the future of investigative journalism.
“Are we finally getting a glimpse of journalism’s future?” asks McCunications. “It sounds promising. I’ve been wondering how investigative journalism could survive in an era when the mainstream media seem cowed by the Bush administration and hamstrung by the financial interests of their corporate owners. Perhaps enterprising reporters like Carey and ‘investment angels’ like Cuban will help create a new model of journalism.”
“This could get very interesting,” writes AMERICAblog. “Cuban has plenty of money to work with and wants the new site to uncover stock fraud and corporate wrongdoing. With the growing list of stock option abuse scandals that are breaking not to mention the standard run-of-the-mill corporate scandals that are making news, there could be an endless supply of material.”
“Who doesn’t love a good evolution every once in a while,” writes Media Bitchfest. “While many newspapers are kicking and screaming against the ever-ferocious current that is the internet, we always like to salute those who’ve taken their heads out of their asses long enough to realize the valuable tool that sits in front of them.
“Thanks to relatively limitless space and the ability to link supporting evidence effortlessly, these Internets have shown themselves to be a quite hospitable forum for long-term investigations and it’s kind of a shame that Old People who run Old Media can’t realize that,” adds Media Bitchfest. “In fact, the blog’s new writer comes from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Silly, ain’t it?”
But at least one blogger wondered whether the decision by one person of high net worth to hire a reporter to investigate other persons of high net worth might eventually come back to haunt him.
In a post entitled, ‘When Billionaires Eat Their Own,’ The Hindsight Factor writes, “This could get ugly. Or fun. Probably a little of both.”
So what does Cuban himself think?
Recently, Cuban posted a journalism manifesto of sorts on his personal blog, under the headline, “Why Journalism Matters,” in which he praised Howard Stern, took a shot at new ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, and announced his new business blogging venture.
“I just hired a young, award-winning journalist to partner with me on a blog that will do nothing but try to uncover corporate fraud,” wrote Cuban.
And perhaps profit off of that information?
Apparently, yes.
“Facts are facts,” Cuban added. “Right is its own defense. If we can uncover companies whose stock is public and that can be bought or sold and that allows us to pay for more in-depth research and effort. I’m good with that.”
Has anyone told Cuban’s stockbroker to get ready for some short-selling?
Felix Gillette writes about the media for The New York Observer.