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journalists_notes

quality journalism

to the point

authors I like

good reporting

  • Noah Cohen at http://connect.nj.com/staff/noahcohen/posts.html
    positives: articles are succinct, provide full information, no hype, have relevant images.
    How I came across it: http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2016/03/3_treated_for_smoke_inhalation_after_apartment_fir.html

space filling journalism

  • Claire Ballentine at https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/ATR8P7ZTClE/claire-ballentine
    See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-15/will-interest-rates-on-savings-accounts-go-up-marcus-ally-bank-keep-levels-low . Very low information density.
  • Tasos Vossos at https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/ATluWOJkzQs/tasos-vossos
    See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-07/blackrock-alumni-want-to-shake-up-world-of-junk-debt-investing?srnd=markets-vp . The title mentions BlackRock Alumni but there were no names in the first 6 paragraphs of the article. Probably writes submarine articles. Ignore articles written by him.
  • Katherine Greifeld at https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AS35L0tDv_U/katherine-greifeld
    • See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-19/blackrock-alumni-have-a-new-gameplan-to-disrupt-junk-debt-etfs?srnd=markets-vp . The title mentions BlackRock, State Street Alums but there were no names listed anywhere in the article. Probably write submarine articles. Ignore articles from this author.
    • Here is one more example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-30/sec-rejects-grayscale-bid-to-turn-biggest-bitcoin-fund-into-etf. The article is probably a submarine article for Grayscale Investments.
  • Josh Robinson at http://www.bloomberg.com/authors/APYZa-30CgQ/josh-robinson
    Here is an example http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-30/economists-say-greece-will-cling-to-euro . The article talks about the results from a survey but fails to mention how the survey is conducted, how the participants were paid (if any), number of people who took the survey etc., I find this type of articles incomplete, misleading and utterly useless.
  • Jonathan D. Rockoff and Michael Rothfeld at http://www.wsj.com/articles/biggest-valeant-holder-plumbed-philidor-ties-1447202547
    Basically they wrote 1000+ article which can be summed up in one sentence - “Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb Inc., manager of Sequoia Fund Inc., and the biggest shareholder of Valeant is inquiring abut Ties between Valeant and Philidor”. I find reading this type of articles a waste of time.

submarine

  • Silla Brush writes submarine articles for Blackrock.
    See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-14/blackrock-s-sustainable-investment-funds-surge-to-509-billion?srnd=markets-vp .
    Ignore articles written by him/her.
  • Angel Au-Yeung writes submarine articles for Blackrock.
    See for eaxmple: https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-powerful-blackrock-team-has-the-ear-of-governments-and-megabanks-11666235717?mod=hp_lead_pos10 .
    Ignore articles written by him/her.

sensational headlines

  • Megan Cassella: [sensational headlines, low information density]. Examples: https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/fed-balance-sheet-5a9bdb18. The headline of the article is “The Fed’s Balance Sheet Held Steady This Week. Why It Matters.” The article did not explain why it matters.
  • Orla McCaffrey writes articles with sensational headlines.
    See for example: https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-rates-drop-after-three-weeks-of-increases-11656597927?mod=hp_lead_pos3 .
    Here the mortgage rates dropped from 5.81% (on 2022-06-23) to 5.7% (on 2022-06-30). A year ago, they were 2.98% (on 2021-07-01). So the 0.11% is not much… but the title of the article is “Mortgage Rates Drop After Three Weeks of Increases”. Also, see the graphic in the article to see what a hyped up article this is.
  • Steven M. Sears: [sensational headlines, low information density]. Examples: https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/costco-e-commerce-play-options-f789d28b. The headline of the article is “Costco Is Hitting E-Commerce Harder. How to Play the Stock.”. The strategy proposed by the author is to sell cash secured puts. This applies to any stock and has nothing to do with Costco. Ignore articles from this author going forward.

speculative headlines

  • Anjani Trivedi wrote articles with speculative headlines.
    See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-07-18/did-buffett-and-munger-see-byd-s-one-problem-lithium-supplies Did Buffett and Munger See BYD’s One Problem? .
    Here she speculated that a big sell order in Hong Kong's clearing system was probably due to selling by Berkshire Hathaway and then went on to describe BYD's current problems. The article is more about BYD's current problems than about Buffett and Munger. Ignore articles written by her.

incomplete

  • John Liu, Claire Che, Dong Cao, and Coco Liu
    See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-26/china-is-said-to-ask-didi-to-delist-from-u-s-on-security-fears?srnd=technology-vp . The article says “regulators want Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi to delist from the New York Stock Exchange because of concerns about leakage of sensitive data.” But it does not tell how does listing a company on NYSE result in “leakage of sensitive data”? Ignore articles written by these people.
  • Katherine Burton at https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/ABoPhmLIrpU/katherine-burton
    See for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-09/millennium-returns-15-billion-in-pursuit-of-longer-term-cash?srnd=markets-vp . It does not give a complete picture of what is going on and the finer details to make an informed conclusion. Ignore articles written by this person.

same article posted on multiple websites

This could be advantageous. For example, if you want to read an article and it is blocked by paywall on one website, you can try another one.

  • Alexis Leondis's is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. Her article titled “A 3% Mortgage? Leveraging Your Stocks to Buy a Home” was posted in the following places
    • https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-07-01/a-3-mortgage-leveraging-your-stocks-to-buy-a-home
    • https://www.fa-mag.com/news/a-3--mortgage--leveraging-your-stocks-to-buy-a-home-68572.html
    • https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-3percent-mortgage-leveraging-your-stocks-to-buy-a-home/2022/07/01/b91dee24-f942-11ec-81db-ac07a394a86b_story.html
    • https://the-news-page.com/a-3-mortgage-leveraging-your-stocks-to-buy-a-home/

biased reporting

  • Caroline Winter at Bloomberg Businessweek. Compare the article she wrote on Scott Adams and the rebuttal by Scott Adams where he explains how the writer distorted the facts.

fluffy articles

aka articles with low information density, articles that make mountains of molehills

Height of desperation

  • Jared Dillian - https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-09/does-warren-buffett-not-understand-risk-adjusted-returns - Desperately tries to argue that (1) Investing in hedge funds is better than investing in index (2) How Warren Buffett is wrong about recommending index funds than hedge funds for an average investor. The arguments does not even make any sense. Better to skip articles from this author from now on.

bad advice

  • Leonid Bershidsky - https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-28/invest-in-bitcoin-even-if-it-s-a-bubble - advices to invest in Bitcoin even though he knows that it is a bubble and a ponzi scheme. Better to avoid any articles from this author from now on.

hyped up

Ref:- comments in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18267460

regurgitation

spaghetti

difficult to read

journalists_notes.txt · Last modified: 2024/09/20 20:30 by raju