Hustled by Wall Street: L.A. Journalist in Limelight.

How does a guy who spends most of his days in dirty shorts and a T-shirt become the toast of the financial media circuit and a trusted source on information for members of Congress?

Ask Benjamin Mark Cole.

A Los Angeles furniture manufacturer by day and business journalist by night, Cole has caught the attention of everyone from reporters at CNBC to members of the House Financial Services Committee by taking on what has recently become a very popular target -- securities analysts.

His first book, "The Pied Pipers of Wall Street: How Analysts Sell You Down the River," is hitting bookstores at a time when analysts face increasing scrutiny from law-makers and regulators for providing investment advice on companies in which their firms have more than a passing interest.

The New York state attorney general is conducting an inquiry into analyst bias and the House subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises this month held a hearing on the issue, during which Cole testified.

Published by Bloomberg Press, "Pied Pipers" also has brought Cole a flood of interview requests in recent days, plus a quick trip to Washington. In fact, confirmation of Cole's appearance on Capitol Hill didn't arrive until six days before the hearing. "(I had) five days that I couldn't do anything else and I already had a full plate," he said.

Cole said he reviewed hundreds of documents and conducted dozens of interviews for the book, which he wrote over nine months of long nights while continuing to run California Handmade, a small furniture business in Elysian Park.

After more than 20 years writing for business publications, including the Business Journal where he currently pens the Wall Street West column, Cole discovered little had been written about analyst bias.

He insists the timing of his book's release was pretty much pure luck. "It was a trend I saw and I reported on it," he said.

John Crutcher, co-founder of Bloomberg Press, said there are 12,000 copies of "Pied Piper" in print and the publisher is optimistic about a second print run.

He described the timing of the book's release as "fortuitous," given that the issue of analyst bias was only beginning to raise eyebrows when Bloomberg decided to back Cole's effort. 'We've been lucky...if you can call the chaos in the market over the last year 'lucky,"' Crutcher said.

What Cole describes is a system in which analysts work for investment banks, not retail investors. "Since (retail trading) commissions were deregulated in 1975, the industry's been under pressure to make money, so they turn to their investment banking and finance departments." The banks expect analysts to bring in underwriting business, Cole said.

Cole was invited to the hearing to provide a journalist's perspective on the issue, said Michael DiResto, a spokesman for the panel's chairman, Rep. Richard Baker (R-La.).

"The financial media is so intrinsically bound to financial market performance, it seemed like a good idea to get somebody from the journalistic world," DiResto said.

More hearings are expected later this year.