Capsule Summary of NY Times article on OSTK/Byrne "menace":
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Any Questions?
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Hard hitting investigative reporter Joe Nocera of the NY Times just released an article opining that Dr. Byrne is a menace to freedom of speech, as he makes fun of reporters and calls them liars and cheats when he feels that they are. He also goes so far as to publish their questions to him, giving the general public a feel for how they behave when they think nobody is looking – apparently that is bad, and he is bad. Bad bad bad.
The article is rather long winded, and basically includes every negative piece of opinion we’ve heard over the last 9 months from the NY financial press: Dr. Byrne is crazy (recall the Sith Lord CC) and mean (because he posted Roddy’s call where Roddy called him a liar) and trying to intimidate everyone into saying only good things about OSTK.
Of course, he ignores the literally many dozens of articles all saying how bad OSTK is, how crazy Byrne is, how innocent the hedge funds he is suing are. So either Dr. Byrne is the most incompetent bully on the planet, or all of this “menace” that Joe sees behind every email isn’t real. Could be a little of both. Or he is more interested in portraying Byrne in a negative light than he is in the truth – where have we seen that before?
How unexpected that the day after Byrne let it be known that his affiants supplied some of the info that Biovail is going to use in their suit against Stephen Cohen and Gradient, that the NY financial media would start an all out anti-Byrne Jihad, abandoning any pretense of fairness or disinterested detachment. Who could have predicted that? Oh, that’s right – I did. About 36 hours ago. Saw it coming from a mile away.
Recap: =
In the interests of amusing myself, I have taken a few nuggets from Joe’s article and sculpted my own observations – you don’t have to read the whole thing to get the feel for the tone. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version – just imagine the main character from Zoolander to get the full effect: “I think Byrne is bad and dangerous and you should too, because he calls some reporters names and says they are lapdogs, and you shouldn’t do that, and Byrne is bad and dangerous and you should think so too, because he is, and the guys he is suing say so too, and did I mention how bad and dangerous he is….?”
That about covers it.
If you have the stomach for more, here are some quotes:
”Although Mr. Byrne told me that his Sith Lord speech ranked among "the 10 proudest moments of my life," most people, including me, thought it was loony beyond belief. Roddy Boyd of The New York Post recalled hearing about it from someone on Wall Street. "When he described it, I thought he was embellishing," Mr. Boyd said. But when he listened to the replay, "my jaw dropped — you cannot make up what occurred on that phone call."
In addition to his conspiracy-mongering, Mr. Byrne talked about Stinger missiles, Wayne and Garth, a mysterious Spanish phone message, stuttering and cocaine. ("I'm not a coke head," he said, unprompted.)
But I'm not laughing anymore. I've gone from viewing Mr. Byrne as an amusing diversion to a menace, at least for anyone who cares about the First Amendment. What has become increasingly clear in the months since the Sith Lord speech is that Mr. Byrne is using the courts, the Internet, his taunting e-mails — and even his conspiracy theory — as part of a thinly disguised effort to squelch any and all criticism of Overstock, a company with $804 million in sales last year.”
Again, nothing new here, just a rehash of how Byrne is nutty as a fruitcake, and the reporter believes that he is a menace to the First Amendment – you know, just because, well, he does. Of course the mega-press offensive against Byrne is ignored - who wants to spoil their story about how Byrne is a 1st Amendment killer with inconvenient facts like that he is criticized more often and more venomously in the press than any other CEO in America?
Anyhow, we have some shocked outrage from another reporter who also has written his share of "Byrne is bad and nuts" pieces, and then some hastily cobbled together reasoning for how Byrne is trying to silence all critics. Which again, ignores that Byrne has had more negative articles written about him from out of NY that Kim Jeung Il has.
Here’s some more:
“Mr. Boyd, for instance, decided to look into Mr. Byrne's allegations about collusion between Rocker Partners and Gradient. After concluding there was nothing to it, he called Mr. Byrne and told him, as he put it to me, "everything you've said not only doesn't stand up, it is false." From that point on, Mr. Boyd became one of Mr. Byrne's targets on the Motley Fool message board, where he often posts messages. "He would say, 'I work for The Post and I'm dumb as a post,' " Mr. Boyd recalled.
Fast-forward to January. Mr. Boyd sent an e-mail message to Mr. Byrne asking about Overstock's dwindling cash position. In a typically coy, sneering response, Mr. Byrne implied that Mr. Boyd was clearly doing the bidding of the miscreants, who were ordering up articles about Overstock's cash situation. He then posted the exchange with Mr. Boyd on the Web site of an ally, a mysterious character who uses the pseudonym Bob O'Brien.
Mr. Boyd soon discovered that Mr. Byrne had dissembled in his answer about Overstock's cash, failing to subtract money owed to the company's vendors, which lowered its available cash from $112 million to $10 million. Furious, Mr. Boyd left a message on Mr. Byrne's voice mail, accusing him of lying. Again, Mr. Byrne saw to it that the voice mail message was posted on Mr. O'Brien's Web site.”
So far what we have is one reporter talking about how another reporter doesn’t like Byrne. We’ve been through the whole Boyd thing before, and anyone interested can just go back and read the blogs devoted to the episode, but essentially we by now have half the NY Times article saying that some reporters think Byrne is a butthead. Got it.
I had to leave in the gratuitous Easter Bunny reference, well, because any press is good press. And this is only the second or third time I’ve been in the NY Times in the last year. And there’s more about my favorite topic – me:
“This is what Mr. Bryne does: along with Mr. O'Brien, he bullies and taunts and goads the small handful of reporters who dare to write about Overstock, making it clear that there will be a price to be paid for tackling the company or its chief executive. And as a result, financial reporters have become very chary of taking him on.”
Huh? “Dares” to write about Overstock? Why, how brave these freedom fighters in NY are! Those chosen few brave enough to tackle hard hitting pieces about how F-ing crazy Byrne is, are, well mocked by the Easter Bunny, and Byrne ALSO MAKES FUN OF THEM!!! How awful! Why, it’s like there are death squads roaming Broadway ready to pounce on critics of Byrne at the slightest provocation. How noble and strong these few brave souls are – and how nice that they also happen to be equally brave about writing negatively about other Rocker short plays, like NFI, TASR, NAVR, etc. Yes, I can see how that would silence all but the most stern of disposition.
“Waaaaaahhhhhh. The Easter Bunny says I’m a dolt! Waaaaaahhhhh. I cannot write anymore. I must now stop all activity, and roll into a fetal position and rock myself to sleep.”
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We are next treated to the obligatory bit about how smart and good Rocker is, and a laundry list of the 3 or 4 of the 40 or so shorts he has had that turned out to be frauds. No article like this is really complete without that – although it is hard to word them differently, as they have been recycled so many times amongst these courageous souls. Still, one has to try to work those in, and this article is no exception – they work very hard to make it seem that Byrne’s appearance as the devil in many many articles over the last few months never happened, and that instead, he is silencing everyone:
“A lawsuit, of course, is far more onerous than being bullied on the Internet. But the purpose is the same. As Mr. Rocker put it in an affidavit, "It is my opinion that this lawsuit represents an attempt by Plaintiff Overstock.com Inc. ("Overstock") and its chief executive Patrick Byrne to use his family's wealth and influence to silence Overstock's critics and doubters through the burden and expense of a lawsuit." (Mr. Byrne's father, who is the chairman of Overstock, is the former chief executive of Geico.)
Rocker Partners has long had a reputation as one of the more aggressive short sellers around. But it also has a reputation for being right a lot of the time. The firm was early on Boston Chicken, on AremisSoft, on Conseco, on Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, and any number of other companies that subsequently "blew up."
How refreshing - the same, oft repeated bit about how anyone that Rocker is short is probably bad, along with some good old fashioned "I'm a victim" rhetoric.
But my favorite part of this is that now, having someone mock you as a dimwit or a dolt, constitutes being bullied. I see. Yessss. I seeeeee.
Hey Joe? You’re a dolt. “How dare you bully and intimidate me?” No, darlin’ you are just a garden variety dimwit. Honest. No intimidation. Just observing that this article has been written at least 20 times over the last 6 months, and usually better. “See, he is a menace to society, and is impinging on my free speech!!!” No, just calling you a dolt to your face. You are actually proving my case. No thinking adult can read your words without smelling the reek of obvious agenda – just because we don’t live in NY doesn’t mean we are all stupid, contrary to that town’s perception.
I find it spectacularly funny that Joe seems to simply not catch that the entire weight of the NY financial journalistic machine has been devoted to writing ugly articles about Byrne, but it is HE that is bullying. Just doesn’t mention the avalanche of negative press that has constituted 98% of the massive coverage OSTK has received ever since “silencing” their critics. How he missed this is beyond my capacity to explain.
Joe, sweety, tell us all something. What would it look like, exactly, if a group of hedge funds were trying to use the NY financial press to bully Byrne? Take your time. Think it over. Maybe on Monday you can field that? Or don’t.
AGAIN: =
And then, the article sort of ends with a flourish – a “Herb is as good as they get, a prince among men, a God walking the earth, honest as the day is long, and as truthful as one could wish for” bit. He must have missed the 32 negative articles about Rocker short NFI in one year, many of which were dead wrong:
“And then there's Mr. Greenberg, who has been an acquaintance of mine for more than a decade, and is one of the straightest shooters I know. As you can surely tell by now, he isn't backing down an inch. "This is the McCarthyism of business journalism," he said the other day. Dow Jones, which owns MarketWatch, has objected to the subpoena, and indeed, the S.E.C. appears to have backed away from it, at least for now.”
Yessss. Poor Herb is a victim. Gradient is a victim. Rocker is a victim. All of them are victims of the evil, all powerful online retailer from Utah, and the Easter Bunny.
I read these, and my mouth literally hangs open in awe. Is this for real? A full page devoted to what a reporter at another paper thinks of Byrne, and the guys he is suing claiming to be victims, and the guy just subpoenaed by the SEC claiming that he is a victim?
Why not just title this happy horseshit what it clearly is, cut to the chase? “Everyone that OSTK claims is part of a conspiracy to destroy the company’s value says that it is THEY that are the victims, and if they can hold a baby in one hand, and an American flag and an apple pie in the other, they will do it.”
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, and when the perps start claiming racism, or persecution, and ignore that they are 1000 times more influential and powerful that the party they claim is “victimizing” them, you know that you've struck a powerful nerve.
Thanks for the confirmation, guys. Can we just create a boilerplate piece and circulate it, make it easier for all the journalists? Something like:
Blah blah blah Byrne is crazy and mean as a snake and dangerous and a nazi and a bully and a communist and a dictator. Blah blah blah Rocker is good and kind and sweet, and is being victimized by bad crazy mean Byrne. Blah blah blah Herb is a victim, as is Carol, blah blah blah and that is why there will be another 20 articles about what a dung beetle Byrne is, not because there is an agenda to demonize him. Insert “and the Easter Bunny is also bad” every other article.
Sound like a plan? We will call that a “type A” anti-Byrne piece.
Good. Then I won’t have to write this blog 20 more times, rather, I can simply say “There’s another type A piece, and this one is noteworthy because they say that the Bunny is Rasputin.”
Thanks in advance for your help with this.