They Just Don't Get Best Buy!

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Best Buy (BBY) is becoming more unstitched by the day. What's the latest evidence? You might not have heard, because a bunch of the media did not tell you, but here's the deal:

Richard Schulze, the company's founder, chairman and biggest stockholder, was due to resign at the end of June at the annual shareholder meeting and continue for another year as a board member. Instead, he resigned abruptly Thursday (at the beginning of the month), leaving the board too.

Problem is, too much of the media, including CNNMoney and Business Insider, did not mention this alarming lurch in timing.

Others, such as Reuters and the New York Post, managed to mention the timing issue, but relegated it to afterthought territory. Strangely, the Financial Times, in an article titled "Best Buy hit by chairman's sudden exit," mentioned that he resigned "effective immediately," but said nothing about the abrupt change in plans that pushed the date up.

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The New York Times put the central element in bold relief right in the headline: "Best Buy Chairman Leaving Early."

As Best Buy struggled to be a Comeback Kid of a retailer like Starbucks (SBUX) instead of any number of failed or congenitally troubled entities like Radio Shack (RSH), more chaos does not bode well.

That differences between Schulze, who owns more than 20% of the stock, and the board, were apparently so canyon-wide that he couldn't have hung out for another month, speaks poorly.

The fact that he'll probably be busy selling stock over the next year and otherwise making mischief instead of serving on the board, adding his vast store of store experience, is also bad.

Timing is everything in life -- especially here.

At the time of publication, Fuchs had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this column.

Marek Fuchs was a stockbroker for Shearson Lehman Brothers and a money manager before becoming a journalist who wrote The New York Times' "County Lines" column for six years. He also did back-up beat coverage of The New York Knicks for the paper's Sports section for two seasons and covered other professional and collegiate sports. He has contributed frequently to many of the Times' other sections, including National, Metro, Escapes, Style, Real Estate, Arts & Leisure, Travel, Money & Business, Circuits and the Op-Ed Page.

For his "Business Press Maven" column on how business and finance are covered by the media, Fuchs was named best business journalist critic in the nation by the Talking Biz website at The University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Fuchs is a frequent speaker on the business media, in venues ranging from National Public Radio to the annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

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