Bad actors are hiding under the guise of truthful reporting to manipulate the markets for their own gain. Journalistic freedom is meant to serve the public and produce credible stories that the American people need to make informed decisions about where they invest, work, and save. But that trust is being tested. Social media has created a world where a single unverified claim can spread like wildfire, and some businesses are exploiting that same speed and reach, not to inform the public, but to move stocks.
A handful of firms have figured out how to profit from that dynamic by publishing under the name of investigative journalism while really working to push profits before anyone can check their work. I believe that Hunterbrook Media is one of those institutions.
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The company is known for its investigative deep dives into the business dealings of various corporations. But one look at the brand page of their website makes it clear that the outlet encourages its reporters to scrutinize their subjects and to seek out bombshell reports and exposés.
Anyone who has investigated its operating model would be skeptical of how intertwined its reporting and investment branches are, for instance. By its own account, “when you monetize insights rather than eyeballs, and align profits with accuracy,” that infers that newsroom reports land on its trading desk before they’re published, coinciding with the fund’s own trading positions. This is a company with money riding on how each of its stories lands, and the people paying for it are the ones with retirement accounts and index funds on the other side of the trade.
As someone who has spent a career in public service, advising at the highest levels of our government, spanning from policy that protects everyday Americans to national security to economic stability, I’m all too familiar with how bad actors exploit gaps in oversight when no one is watching. Core conservative principles rest on free markets built on free dealing and transparency. A company that shorts a stock, times a story to the position, and calls it journalism isn’t practicing that free enterprise at all. It’s taking advantage of the trust that free markets depend on, and everyday investors are the ones who pay for it.
Time and time again, Hunterbrook treats a weak, uncorroborated breadcrumb as enough to go after a company. Most recently, an anonymously sourced allegation that NBA star Kawhi Leonard held a secret sponsorship deal with Daktronics, built on two anonymous sources with no contract, invoice, dollar figure, or timeline offered. Any serious institution should be privy to Hunterbrook’s character as a company, and the fact that they are not a pure news organization, before treating their anonymous sources as anything more than schoolyard rumors.
Nonetheless, that kind of feeble sourcing is Hunterbrook’s bread and butter. The Wall Street Journal reported that Hunterbrook’s investors lost money last year, partly on a weakly supported bet against Hims & Hers Health that predominantly leaned on since-deleted Reddit posts and omitted that its central source had doubled the recommended dose of their medication. Their report on CAVA seized on a handful of “C” health grades in New York City, a small fraction of the chain’s 350-plus locations nationwide. The story about Hims used many anonymous sources, including “alleged patients,” to support claims that legally selling compounding drugs risks regulatory scrutiny. And it is likely the hedge fund traded on that manufactured news.
The faults in these aggressive investigations are unsurprising, considering the company’s modus operandi is scrutiny until story. Their sourcing methods seem to be flawed by design. Hunterbrook’s own “About Us” page plainly states: “We don’t aggregate.” Yet its international reporting shows story after story built mostly on hyperlinks to other outlets’ work with little independent verification, which is a direct contradiction of the very standard Hunterbrook is publicly holding itself to and, frankly, is lazy journalism.
THE MEDIA ACT LIKE CHEERLEADERS WITH PRESS CREDENTIALS — THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE INSTANT REPLAY
I didn’t spend years dedicating my life to oversight-heavy issues at the State Department to watch that same standard of accountability disappear when it comes to an informed public. Whether a hedge fund targets a health company or an NBA headline, the result is the same when it times a story to its own position: the people pay for it. At a time when the cost of living is already squeezing American families, they shouldn’t be footing the bill for someone else’s headline.
The free market cannot exist if it is overwhelmed by manufactured narratives refusing to acknowledge short selling for what it is. Before the next “bombshell” report breaks headlines, readers should ask a simple question: who benefits, and did they know before they published? Demanding that answer from Hunterbrook and from any outlet acting in the same way is the least investors deserve.
Matt Mowers is a national public affairs strategist and former diplomat who serves as President of Valcour, a global public strategy firm. Matt served as a Senior White House Advisor at the U.S. Department of State in the administration of President Donald J. Trump.
