I'm not a fan of the expansion of the concept of "fake news" to include any story a subject thinks was not fair.<p>There are stories that were completely made up by Estonian teenagers, with no connection to facts at all, which were widely republished and shared. That's the "fake news" problem.<p>The problem of journalists misrepresenting a company (either by mistake or on purpose) is as old as the hills. It was as true back when the media was widely trusted, as it is now.
Independent fact checking seems like a great idea. Discrepancies in news stories should absolutely be pointed out. But I'm hesitant about the idea of having an "established party to assess the accuracies of what is being said".<p>Are we supposed to censor stories that this party designate as being fake? Who should oversee such a thing? What qualifies as "news"?
I am in the investment world and have long found Dalio to be crazy on the order of batshit level, and frankly there are a number of issues regarding Bridgewater that make my BS detector go wild. Their returns are a complete mystery to me. They charge high fees and consistently beat the market with low volatility, without leverage, and owning an <i>extremely</i> diversified group of assets, none of which are farther down the risk spectrum (eg equities, VC, etc). I haven't seen even the most sophisticated alternative fund allocators (eg big university endowments) sufficiently explain what it is that Bridgewater does.<p>Unrelated, since Jon Rubinstein is the co-CEO of Bridgewater, perhaps it does have some relevance to HN. (Although I have a side bet with a friend that he will leave in less than 24 months)
This article resonated with me quite a bit, the Bridgewater connection notwithstanding. People love to sensationalize Ray Dalio as a cult figure and, at the same time, seem to not be able to stand how successful his firm has been. My encounters with Bridgewater staff (interviewers, friends, and a day onsite) all struck me as unusual but refreshing, even though at the time 7-10 years ago I could not succeed in that environment. Nowadays, I find myself shooting for a similar level of transparency in my work and personal life and being much more successful because of it.<p>This is a case study of distorted news from an individual who understands the motivations behind it like few others, because he has been targeted by this sort of distortion more consistently than most. Those motivations include:<p>- pressure from management to spin a story a certain way
- the reporter's personal desire to confirm his/her point of view
- the desire to put down success stories to feel better about oneself<p>The distortion of news is not the only place in the world where these forces are at play, but given the platform news organizations have, we must find a way to control for them.
"if you have a society where people can't agree on the basic facts, how do you have a functioning democracy?"<p>with a functioning priesthood as the mediator of truth exactly like societies around the world throughout history have determined the truth. The question is not if this will happen, it's "who are currently the priests?"
Billionaire CIO isn't happy with how the Wall Street Journal (a famously business-friendly newspaper, as its name suggests) covered his company, rumbles ominously about curtailing free speech for journalists. That's about accurate, isn't it?
An independent, well funded, public broadcaster.<p>I think Australia's ABC is a step in the right direction, but I would like to see more transparency.<p>News organisations should not need to be popular. They need to be able to tell us the hard truths. Journalists need to be given the time and the resources to do thier job.
> The problem is that people who are happy with their experience and respecting our rules are not allowed to speak with the media so you end up hearing disproportionately from disgruntled people.<p>Well, perhaps Dalio should consider extending his "radical transparency" to include not gagging his supposedly happy employees!?
I really want The National Enquirer and other tabloids to have a "For Entertainment Purposes Only" banner on top. And if I see Dr. Oz gurning at me from a "health" magazine one more time, I'm going to get a permanent twitch in my right eye.
This is not a very enlightening article. Very few people care about Bridgewater, especially on HN. More focus on specific issues and possible fixes with 'distorted news' would have been of interest, but is not present in this article.
I got bizarrely excited when I saw they'd mischaracterized his opinion of James Comey. I share a tremendously positive opinion of the current FBI director, but his handling of tech issues [1] and hiring/firing [2] have been less than ideal. There may not be a way to describe people you feel 98% good about in this media climate. All the good becomes invisible because the disagreements become all anyone speaks about.<p>And yet, having someone in a prominent role who never disagrees with you is worthless. So there are some really bizarre incentives here.<p>What's even more bizarre is that e.g. Clapper never got even remotely that level of non-controversial good-doing-ness, and yet we have dramatically fewer conversations about that.<p>[1] <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7d57f576e3f74b6ca4cd3436fbebf160/comey-fbi-wants-adult-conversation-device-encryption" rel="nofollow">http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7d57f576e3f74b6ca4cd3436fbebf...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/us/battling-crime-and-calories-at-fbi-fit-bureau-of-investigation.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/us/battling-crime-and-calo...</a>