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It’s tough fighting corporate tyranny, making billions and maintaining your own blog, as Carl Icahn, the zillionaire activist investor, has discovered since his dramatic and much-heralded entry to the world of blogging earlier this year. Now, reports DealBook, he’s about to get some help.

The activist shareholder has hired Dane Hamilton, a hedge fund reporter at Thomson Reuters, to work on his website, The Icahn Report, according to people briefed on the matter. Hamilton is expected to contribute original reporting and analysis to the site, augmenting Icahn’s own “voluble opinions” on the state of corporate America, notes DealBook.

A seven-year veteran of the news service, Hamilton has written primarily about alternative investments, including hedge funds - and, of course, about his future employer, adds DealBook. (He scored an interview with the irascible investor on the eve of the debut of The Icahn Report.)
Icahn launched his blog on June 19 with one of his most famous quotes, from 1988, pledging: “A lot of people die fighting tyranny. The least I can do is vote against it.”

But of late, the scourge of more than a few boardrooms has lost some spark, or perhaps has been simply too preoccupied with other things, such as ImClone, to vent on the web. Or perhaps he’s going soft. His last post, dated July 31, concerns Yahoo’s annual meeting and, as the FT notes, focuses on his compromise with Yahoo’s board and management over directors’ seats.
“I will not be attending. The proxy fight is over and it will not do shareholders or Yahoo any good to have the annual meeting turn into a media event for no purpose,”

Icahn said he had realised it would be impossible to gain enough support from large institutions to win a majority of the directorships. Not only that, but after meeting Yahoo’s Jerry Yang and Roy Bostock, he noted on his blog: “While we still disagree on many points, I have great hope ‘this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship’.”

Presumably, however, Hamilton’s new job will greatly benefit Icahn’s site, as his new employer has already signalled his desire to improve and expand the blog, notes DealBook. “We’re hoping for a grass-roots response to this down the road,” he told Hamilton in June.