I'd say a better option is to use the inbuilt jquery datatable feature to apply a style class to that column and then simply use css to set the background color for that class.
$(document).ready( function() {
$('#example').dataTable( {
"aoColumnDefs": [
{ "sClass": "my_class", "aTargets": [ 0 ] }
]
} );
} );
Edit: Since you want the 4th column, and since the 'aTargets' parameter is 0-based, and just for arguments sake, if you wanted for more columns, say the 6th and 8th too, then
$(document).ready( function() {
$('#example').dataTable( {
"aoColumnDefs": [
{ "sClass": "my_class", "aTargets": [ 3, 5, 7 ] }
]
} );
} );
and then for the style
.my_class {
background-color: Red;
}