Have you ever actually dealt with reporters before? From my time in science I can attest that yes, reporters very much are this dumb at times. That's the issue with anyone who's too much of a generalist.
Bloomberg is also one of the most valuable tech companies in the world. Their entire business model revolves around providing accurate financial information. We happily pay $2k per month per person for it, partly because it is such a trusted source.
Some reporters may be dumb, but if it has the Bloomberg name attached to it, and has far reaching effects in financial markets, you can be pretty confident that this wasn't just the work of some clueless reporter.
Mike Bloomberg himself stands to lose an enormous amount of money due to lost business in China, as a result of this story's publication. Whether the story is accurate or inaccurate, either way Mike is going to lose money on it. The only business-logical thing that Bloomberg could have done with this story is to sit on it. Clearly there are non-business motivations for this publication. The possibilities that immediately strike me or that an overriding incentive for this publication was provided by an outside monolithic actor or that an ethical / public interest motivation prevailed.
If the claims are to be believed, the story was 1 year in the making and used 100 separate interviews and it was worked on by a team of journalists.
I can easily imagine ONE journalist getting key facts wrong in a typical story which had to be pumped out before a deadline. I've seen it myself.
BUT this is a very major story by elite journalists with a lot to lose if they screw up. They're not "dumb" but they might have been deceived deliberately.
Whatever the case, I expect a very ugly truth will shake out eventually.
My wife went to a large journalism school, and I met many journalists-in-training.
Their failing isn't that they are dumb per se, but that they confidently believe they understand something when they have only heard the barest details. It's like they are afraid to ever say "I don't know", or question their own understanding of reality.
Comments
Have you ever actually dealt with reporters before? From my time in science I can attest that yes, reporters very much are this dumb at times. That's the issue with anyone who's too much of a generalist.
Bloomberg is also one of the most valuable tech companies in the world. Their entire business model revolves around providing accurate financial information. We happily pay $2k per month per person for it, partly because it is such a trusted source.
Some reporters may be dumb, but if it has the Bloomberg name attached to it, and has far reaching effects in financial markets, you can be pretty confident that this wasn't just the work of some clueless reporter.
Mike Bloomberg himself stands to lose an enormous amount of money due to lost business in China, as a result of this story's publication. Whether the story is accurate or inaccurate, either way Mike is going to lose money on it. The only business-logical thing that Bloomberg could have done with this story is to sit on it. Clearly there are non-business motivations for this publication. The possibilities that immediately strike me or that an overriding incentive for this publication was provided by an outside monolithic actor or that an ethical / public interest motivation prevailed.
If the claims are to be believed, the story was 1 year in the making and used 100 separate interviews and it was worked on by a team of journalists.
I can easily imagine ONE journalist getting key facts wrong in a typical story which had to be pumped out before a deadline. I've seen it myself.
BUT this is a very major story by elite journalists with a lot to lose if they screw up. They're not "dumb" but they might have been deceived deliberately.
Whatever the case, I expect a very ugly truth will shake out eventually.
My wife went to a large journalism school, and I met many journalists-in-training.
Their failing isn't that they are dumb per se, but that they confidently believe they understand something when they have only heard the barest details. It's like they are afraid to ever say "I don't know", or question their own understanding of reality.