By Kate Prouty

As Martha Stewart faced her indictment, about 100 CPAs simultaneously enjoyed a catered lunch that would have made even America’s leading homemaker proud.

Author of Martha Inc. Christopher Byron’s luncheon address at the Foundation for Accounting Education’s CPAs in Industry Conference could not have been better timed. Having published the book last year, Byron told the event coordinators that he would talk about the charges against Stewart only if there was action in the case around the time of his speech.

As fate would have it, the attendees got the most out of their meal. On the very same day as the conference, Stewart was indicted in a federal district court elsewhere in Manhattan on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and securities fraud, all linked to a personal stock trade she made in 2001.

The June 4 indictment was like “a Shakespearean moment in Act V where bodies start hitting the floor,” Byron said. He should know. He has been following the case since Act I. Writing a column about Stewart’s timely sale of nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone Systems led Byron to later write his unauthorized biography of Stewart, Martha Inc. At the conference held at the New York Helmsley Hotel in Manhattan, Byron talked about his process of writing the biography and inserted his own interpretation of all the attention surrounding Stewart’s case.

He compared the hype to Watergate: it’s never the crime, but rather the alleged cover-up that comes back to haunt you, he said. Byron feels Stewart’s refusal to cooperate with the press led them to believe there was more to her story than she was willing to divulge, thus compelling them to dig deeper for dirt.

Despite Stewart and other executives’ reluctance to address the media in similar scandals, reporters now have access to public information that has been made available on the Internet—a fact that, along with other audit and investing issues, Byron originally planned to discuss at the conference. Through resources like the Securities and Exchange Commission’s automated collection system, commonly known as EDGAR, hard-hitting business reporting has been extended to publications of all capacities, and enabled Byron to quickly and accurately generate the numbers he reports in his weekly New York Post column, he pointed out.

EDGAR, the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system, performs automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance and forwarding of submissions by companies and others who are now required by law to file forms with the SEC. (Companies were phased in to EDGAR filing over a three-year period, ending May 6, 1996.)

In essence, the system levels the securities market playing field for investors, corporations and, thus, the economy, by “accelerating the receipt, acceptance, dissemination and analysis of time-sensitive corporate information filed with the agency,” the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov/edgar/aboutedgar.htm, states. Conveniently for them, business journalists, Byron observed, happen to also reap the benefits.

Not very long ago, however, instant access to corporate reports was considered an oxymoron. Byron remembered his days as business editor of Time when they used messengers to courier information from a company to the newsroom; there were instances when the magazine wouldn’t run stories because it couldn’t get the facts quickly enough. Now, with small, independent publications tapped into the same networks as huge media conglomerates, readers are offered far more democratized resources, he said.

Weaving the Stewart scandal through the inner workings of business journalism made for a compelling address, as the two topics are inextricably linked. With the Internet, the SEC’s EDGAR system and Stewart as primary examples, Byron demonstrated that reporters have quick access to the facts, placing white-collar CEOs in the crosshairs of American media. Simply stated, that is why Byron said he feels Martha Stewart’s goose may well be cooked.