
The Wall Street Journal’s Fake and Distorted News - tvvocold
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wall-street-journals-fake-distorted-news-ray-dalio/
======
chkaloon
During my career in IT the New York Times did a handful of articles involving
either the small company I worked for or on some subject area I was heavily
involved in. Each time I was amazed at the level of inaccuracies and
misunderstandings the in the articles. Given that this happened in a small
sample, it could be that these were unusual cases, but I highly doubt it. I
have a feeling that this is all too common. Since then I look at mainstream
media reporting with lots of skepticism.

~~~
KKKKkkkk1
I worked on a project that was the subject of media interest that management
wanted to keep under wraps. We would occasionally read bad news about the
project in the NYT or the WSJ, management would deny the news, and then future
developments would confirm that the reporting was correct (other than some
inconsequential details that management would harp on).

These folks might not know much about 3D printing or blockchain or whatnot,
but they are experts at sourcing, verifying, and reporting information.
Dismiss them at your peril.

~~~
thu2111
Hmm, if they were truly experts at that then there'd be far fewer mistakes
that people notice. And they'd have widely discussed, mature, sophisticated
systems for catching errors, sort of like how the software industry invests so
much into type systems and other quality techniques.

I think it's more likely you just remember that incident because it was so
directly relevant to your life, so it gets magnified. I can add my voice to
the chorus of people who have noticed a vast gulf between what gets reported
and reality, especially when op-eds get involved.

This doesn't happen all the time. I've been involved in some stories which
were pretty accurately reported. But it's completely dependent on (a) the
skill of the individual journalist and much more importantly (b) if the story
is relevant to something the journalist cares about. It's relatively easy for
journalists to cover 3D printing or blockchain "reliably" (by the standards of
the press) because they don't actually care about these topics. When the issue
you know about starts to intersect social worldviews or power games within the
political/journalistic sphere itself, things get crazy really fast.

And there's no consistency between journalists. The entire press industry is
set up to consider journalism to be the act of a heroic and noble individual
rather than the outcome of a process, a system. The "Jim Lehrer's Rules of
Journalism" story that was discussed here recently is a good example of that.
It wasn't actually a set of rules in the sense an engineer would understand it
(i.e. something checked and enforced), it was a personal honour code.
Journalism will never be able to increase its reliability whilst it treats the
output as the product primarily of a writer + editor.

------
iamleppert
"As for The Wall Street Journal’s claim that I’m refusing to let go of control
of Bridgewater, I can assure you that that is not true and that if it was
true, I’d tell you it was true."

He claims their piece is full of factual errors but never addressed a single
one in his LinkedIn post, and never provided any kind of evidence or arguments
to support any of his other hyperbolic claims of systemic problems in
journalism of the WSJ. Then he does something that is common in people who are
actively dishonest: the old "Trust me, I'd tell you the truth." statement.
Generally people who are honest are eager to present logical arguments backed
by facts that can be verified. They don't need to ask for trust because trust
isn't required to form independent conclusions based on evidence.

His LinkedIn post, after I read it, makes me believe the WSJ article more, not
less.

~~~
mirimir
One good piece of advice from Abercrombie is that only liars say "trust me".
That would never occur to anyone who's really being honest.

~~~
thu2111
Ironicallly, it's actually iamleppert's post that seems to be misrepresenting
things.

Firstly, the Dalio doesn't say "trust me" anywhere. The word trust doesn't
appear in it at all, and the closest it gets semantically is the closing
paragraph where he says:

 _You are now faced with a choice. You can believe my account of what’s
happening or The Wall Street Journal’s. What you do is up to you._

The story he's taking argument with is about inter-personal relationships and
subjective claims so it's hard to prove anything about it objectively. But
nonetheless, he actually has _" provided any kind of evidence or arguments to
support any of his other hyperbolic claims of systemic problems in journalism
of the WSJ"_.

Specifically this: Dalio states that one of the journalists applied for a job
at his company and was rejected, the WSJ knew that, and kept him on the story
anyway. That would create a problematic conflict of interest (plus it seems
Bridgewater and this specific journalist have a long running fight of some
sort). The claim is uncheckable directly but the journalist has replied to
Dalio's post with nothing more than a link to his article and "Happy Sunday".
If such a very specific and problematic accusation were false, presumably he'd
dispute that.

To me that's sufficient to support his claim of bad journalism at the WSJ.
It's not a claim hyperbolic if they're assigning failed job candidates to
cover a company.

He also disputes the other claims but both the WSJ and his position seem very
subjective, it's all about to what extent he really controls the firm and
whether there have been internal fights or not. I don't see any way to judge
who's right there. You'd have to believe in the WSJ's process for finding the
truth to take a side here, but as they rely entirely on anonymous sources and
already failed step 1 "no conflicts of interest", I don't see why we should
automatically assume the WSJ story is true here.

~~~
iamleppert
You're right in that he didn't say "Trust me" but he did say a trust-seeking
analogous of:

"I can assure you that that is not true and that if it was true, I’d tell you
it was true."

The definition of assure is: "tell someone something positively or confidently
to dispel any doubts they may have."

Note the definition of trust: "firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability,
or strength of someone or something."

"I can assure you" presented without any assurances or facts otherwise in this
context is simply another form of "Trust me".

In any event, without mincing words, the WSJ article presenting some very
concrete evidence that his business is both a mess internally and by the
numbers isn't delivering compared to a simple index fund. Why didn't he
address this in his post if it was untrue? The WSJ even presented a graph with
data to back up their claims on rate of returns. I verified the last years
numbers (admittedly with a quick Google search, but two other sources seem to
have similar conclusions).

------
tvvocold
FYI: Here is the WSJ‘s "Fake and Distorted News"
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/ray-dalio-is-still-driving-
his-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/ray-dalio-is-still-driving-
his-160-billion-hedge-fund-machine-11580504150)

~~~
sepbot
without the paywall: [http://archive.is/8QSfQ](http://archive.is/8QSfQ)

~~~
cmroanirgo
Google captcha-walled

------
xrd
A lot of comments here suggest that journalists and newspapers are only out to
make what sells. That rings false to me in absolute terms. If you read Liars
Poker by Michael Lewis you know he was employed at a brokerage and could have
stuck around if he was only looking out for money. Does no one else here
believe there are journalists who have forsaken the path of making big bucks
in other fields to do the right thing?

It feels like there is a broad brush painting over this entire discussion. I
can't say Ray Dalio makes a convincing case for himself here.

~~~
ironic_ali
From /U/gwbrooks commenting above you:

> Former newspaper editor and publisher here. The quickest way to lose your
> faith in the media is to have them cover something you actually know about.

Personal experience of mine was in my much younger days (early 90's and the
Tory govt was pushing the 'criminal justice bill) when a rave in a field I was
at was raided by 200+ police in full riot gear. They launched an unprovoked
attack, beating the shit out of those they got their battons on.

The BBC had Cameras there and on the news that night edited to look like the
kids were attacking the police. Never forgotten that, or how the BBC
propagandised for the govt.

There have been numerous other examples in my tech & finance careers since
then. When I see news, my first thought is what is the agenda of the the
author (s) and am never surprised when the real.agenda appears later on.

------
tedunangst
> You are now faced with a choice. You can believe my account of what’s
> happening or The Wall Street Journal’s.

Having now read both accounts, I think I'm going to have to go with the WSJ
here.

------
darkerside
> The Wall Street Journal and other publications don’t have investigative
> journalists write complementary articles on people because those articles
> don’t sell, which is why our country has no heroes

This happens all the time. They're called fluff PR pieces. Basically the
opposite of what Dalio describes in the rest of his post, but they absolutely
exist.

------
quizotic
Bridgewater is famous for valuing a culture of almost brutal honesty and
fierce internecine warring over ideas. It argues this combination is vital to
reaching the deep understanding that is critical to the success of its
investments. While Bridgewater has experimented with leadership transitions
multiple times, changing directions and reversing course seems consistent and
faithful to its internal DNA. Life doesn't always go in neat straight lines.
Forcing a simple story line isn't always best.

------
smacktoward
_> As for The Wall Street Journal’s claim that I’m refusing to let go of
control of Bridgewater, I can assure you that that is not true and that if it
was true, I’d tell you it was true._

So your counter-argument to an article in a publication that has won 37
Pulitzer prizes for the quality of its news reporting is: “they’re wrong,
trust me.”

~~~
forgingahead
He's the subject of the article? If he himself has no right of reply, then who
does?

~~~
rumanator
I guess the point is that his reply simply is not convincing at all, because
it amounts to asking for blind trust in the absence of proof.

~~~
forgingahead
What is the threshold for "convincing" though? If I write an article about you
alleging or directly concluding something unpleasant, ask you for comment,
include your denials, but publish anyway slanting the entire article to my
narrative, and you publish your own take on the matter, are you automatically
not convincing? _" But the people have a right to know, that rumanator did
XYZ!!"._

This is the entire problem -- there is nothing that will apparently get a
media org to retract or back down, because for them, publishing something,
anything means revenue and not publishing means going out of business, facts
be damned.

Media: "Hey, we're writing an article about this concerning you -- any
comment?"

Subject: "It's completely untrue."

Media: "Ooh, you must be hiding something, we're publishing anyway."

Subject: <Publishes online rebuttal>

Online commentariat: "He's not convincing!! The media is under attack and our
democracy is dying in the darkness!"

------
faintrain
I like Ray Dalio. I’m a big fan of his book, Principles and his favorite book
recommendation, Lessons of History by the Durants.

However, his LinkedIn post is irresponsible and appears more to do with
discrediting journalism than sticking to and stating the facts. It’s becoming
more than apparent that some members of the 1% are increasingly threatened
about the role that unfettered journalism and left-leaning politics has in
critiquing their unchecked power in this time of historically significant
inequality.

~~~
forgingahead
I don't understand your point. I like the WSJ myself, and have been a
subscriber for 15 years. However, the article is clearly biased, in that they
give token space near the beginning to the responses of the _actual subjects
in the article_ , and then spend the balance 80% of the article continuing
their narrative, regardless of what the subjects themselves said!

Ray Dalio is right. Journalism is not about informing or educating, it is
about entertaining, and depending on your media source of choice, you are
being pandered to.

This is not about "discrediting journalism" or whatever sob story media
pushers want to cry crocodile tears about. They have killed their own
credibility, and every day they behave badly, and _continue to play victim_ ,
the more people wake up and stop trusting them.

Edit -- the big thing that media companies _hate_ is that now with the
internet and social media, people being covered have a voice and can speak up.
Media companies absolutely hate this loss of influence, and again will attack
anyone or anything that chips away at that from them. But again, they exposed
themselves, and have wrecked their own credibility, hence the dying out of the
industry.

~~~
nullc
I don't know why you think "media companies" hate anything.

I think that they're just doing whatever makes the most money.

Printing hardly researched often untrue shock-garabage makes a lot of money.
It gets traffic from people who agree with it and traffic from people who
think it's awful. Even lying outright-- there are no consequences and it's
cheap to produce. If anyone cares the controversy just means even more
traffic.

No great conspiracy is required. Modern consumption patterns have made
essentially tabloid grade 'journalism' more profitable than it was while
making traditional modes of journalism less profitable. If the commercial
operations weren't producing junk at scale they'd probably be put out of
business by grass roots tabloid-content production.

I'm sure there are plenty of journalists who would like to do better, but
wishes doesn't put food on the table. They produce what earns money or they
find another line of work.

We get what we incentivize.

~~~
JackFr
I agree that we get what we incentivize. But there is really nothing new about
this at all.

The idea of news outlets presenting unvarnished truth without slant or bias is
a fantasy world that never existed. In fact, while the technology has changed,
the journalism of today is much more reliable and objective than that of one
and two hundred years ago.

------
RickJWagner
Dalio is the creator of the 'All Weather Portfolio', which was popularized in
a Tony Robbins book. The portfolio is _very_ heavy on bonds, a controversial
idea.

Dalio is often outspoken on lots of financial matters. I'll be watching this
issue, he's an interesting figure.

------
sessy
May be they deserve a Toohey Award:
[https://tooheys.org/](https://tooheys.org/)

------
pavlov
I don’t really understand why we should care about a fund or its managers.

Unlike product companies, funds don’t contribute anything meaningful to the
world. It’s a zero-sum game where someone comes out on top with $19 billion
dollars and then goes to Burning Man. That’s acceptable but not admirable.

The only difference between Dalio and Madoff is that the former actually has
the money. Neither has a legacy.

~~~
anm89
Trite.

He is playing in one of the most difficult and competitive games in the world,
has a track record of crushing it, and has produced excellent work to document
and share the mindset which helps him do it.

He obviously has a legacy. People like me respect him. You don't like his
legacy. That doesn't mean he doesn't have one.

