Mark Cuban, perhaps more than any other dot-com era entrepreneur, has made the most of his big score. After selling his company in 1999 for billions in bubble-inflated Yahoo! stock, he proceeded to sell that stock as fast as possible (smart move), and engage his passion by buying a professional basketball team. His theories about success in the NBA have mostly proven true – and now, somewhat improbably, he's turning a lot of his manic attention to the future of journalism in the internet age.

Cuban's first significant foray was his own blog, which isn't exactly journalism but does represent the best of a certain type of internet media. He talks about his basketball team and his businesses and whatever else is on his mind, and it's refreshingly open and honest. He also funded a blogging network called Weblogs Inc, recently acquired by AOL, and then made a big splash by hiring fallen CBS anchor Dan Rather to do news shows for his fledgling high-definition television network.

But the Cuban journalism adventure that's getting the most attention these days is a Sharesleuth, a new site devoted to investigative reporting about business that's just published its first story. Sharesleuth is run by an experienced and well-regarded financial journalist, and in the wake of Enron and Tyco and everything else, no one could argue that we don't need more in-depth business reporting. Sharesleuth, however, is more than a little controversial, because the business model is based on short selling.

Just about everyone in media agrees these days that new business models are needed if internet journalism is to thrive. But a model in which the owner will make money from the fall of stocks he knows will be the subject of a negative story? Even though Cuban has been clear from the beginning that this was the plan, it still seems odd and vaguely unclean. Can the journalism be trusted if we know that it's intended (or at least expected) to drive the stock down?

This credibility question cuts across many areas of journalism these days, as the traditional branded news providers are joined by all manner of upstarts who may (or may not) have an agenda other than straightforward news reporting.

One school of thought holds that disclosure is the answer to all such questions; as long as publishers and writers are explicit about their methods and their motives, readers can make their own decisions. Indeed, Cuban attacks critics of Sharesleuth on just these grounds, arguing that his venture is more transparent (and thus more credible) than traditional business media.

I tend to agree that disclosure goes a long way, although disclosing all possible motives and conflicts can sometimes be impossible (who among us is even aware of all our motivations?). But the more complicated question is what readers are supposed to do with all that duly-disclosed information.

Knowing that investigations published at Sharesleuth are being undertaken in support of the publisher's investment positions – or at the very least are consistent with them – is a red flag for me as a reader. I don't mean that there's anything ethically wrong with it. I just know from my own experience in the financial research business that information developed for trading purposes is generally useless by the time it becomes widely available.

Indeed, the first principle of investment research is that having the information first is everything. When I worked for Off the Record Research, there were elaborate procedures designed to insure that all clients got the information at the same time. If clients thought the firm was "trading ahead" of the release of the information, or that anyone had priority access, they would have stopped buying it.

Business journalism and investment research have always had a lot in common; the best Wall Street analysts have always employed journalistic reporting techniques, and some of them are good writers too. But you can be sure that when financial institutions publish their "reporting," any money there is to be made on that information has already been made.

I think of Sharesleuth not so much as a journalism enterprise as a new model for internet-based investment research. It's pretty clever, in fact. If Sharesleuth finds an audience and people act on what they read there, Cuban gets a double bang for his buck. He finances research and then trades based on the findings. He then publishes that research and people pile into his position behind him, which in itself can make the trades pay off.

Why didn't I think of that?

Cuban says in the afterword to the first Sharesleuth story that this is not his strategy at all: "My personal preference is that you not take any investment action based on the information in this report." The value, he says, lies in "knowing more information about the people involved, just in case you come across them in your personal business dealings."

I'll take him at his word on that, because I know him a little bit and I've always appreciated his openness. But he shouldn't be surprised – or chagrined – if a lot of people don't.

Jonathan Weber is the founder and editor in chief of NewWest.Net, a new type of regional news and information service focused on the Rocky Mountain West in the United States. He was previously the co-founder and editor in chief of the Industry Standard

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