We poked a little fun at Harbinger Capital Partners honcho Phil Falcone for not being the most communicative guy when it comes to dealing with some of the companies that his hedge fund is busy badgering. Let us therefore be the first to tell you when he actually does show up.

Falcone made an appearance at Mario Gabelli’s investor forum on Tuesday at the Harvard Club in New York, where Media General’s chief executive Marshall Morton and Harbinger Vice President Joseph Cleverdon laid out their competing visions for the newspaper publisher and broadcaster’s future.

Falcone sat in the second row and didn’t ask any questions, according to a well informed source. Later, Morton approached Falcone, but it wasn’t quite the SALT talks. Here’s Morton’s account:

“I went up to him, and said, ‘Are you Philip?’ And he said, yes he was.”

It’s a start.

Morton, meanwhile, had few good words for Harbinger’s presentation. You can read most of it here, but he also shared some of his other views with us:

On the presentation itself:

Their presentation was largely flawed. They used the slides to show us in a negative light, of course. … He had some facts in there that were disputable, as far as we’re concerned. … I will tell you my takeaway: We’ve tried for several months to talk to people, nearly nine months, so today we heard more … From that standpoint I feel like we’re better informed about what’s on their minds.

On whether there’s something they could work out:

It left us unable to do anything or draw any conclusions that would be usable. It’s not like we left there with solutions that were workable.

… Or maybe it’s not a start.

(Photo: Reuters file)