Journalism Failures – Big Time

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In February 2001, Fortune magazine named ENRON the &#8220-most innovative company&#8221-.

In October 2007, Robin Hanson, on the Overcoming Bias blog, re-published the falsehood that James Surowiecki (and 3 other book authors in their respective book) made a mistake about Francis Galton in his book, The Wisdom Of Crowds.

In January 2008, the &#8220-BetFair Prof&#8221- (Leighton Vaughan-Williams) claimed, on the BetFair blog, that the &#8220-betting markets&#8221- foresaw the Republican race in the Michigan primary.

In January 2008, Risk magazine named SOCIETE GENERALE (recently busted by one of its traders, which lead to a loss of 7.2 billion dollars) the &#8220-equity derivatives house of the year&#8221-.

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TAKEAWAY: Either by complete incompetence or by lack of investigation means, journalism is not up to its lofty goal &#8212-telling the truth to people.

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Risk magazine

(Via Marc Andreessen.)

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Jerome Kerviel, soon to be named &#8220-person of the year&#8221- by Risk magazine? :-D

Jerome Kerviel

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Societe Generale Logo

Societe General Tower in Paris

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • A second look at HedgeStreet’s comment to the CFTC about “event markets”
  • Since YooPick opened their door, Midas Oracle has been getting, daily, 2 or 3 dozens referrals from FaceBook.
  • US presidential hopeful John McCain hates the Midas Oracle bloggers.
  • If you have tried to contact Chris Masse thru the Midas Oracle Contact Form, I’m terribly sorry to inform you that your message was not delivered to the recipient.
  • THE CFTC’s SECRET AGENDA —UNVEILED.
  • “Over a ten-year period commencing on January 1, 2008, and ending on December 31, 2017, the S & P 500 will outperform a portfolio of funds of hedge funds, when performance is measured on a basis net of fees, costs and expenses.”
  • Meet professor Thomas W. Malone (on the right), from the MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence.

18 thoughts on “Journalism Failures – Big Time

  1. Bo Cowgill said:

    Chris, you identify as a journalist, right? You’re not going to list all the inaccuracies you’ve printed over the years that have required correction?

  2. Chris. F. Masse said:

    1. Just a remark. Journalism is something we do when we blog for our audience. So, “we are all journalists, now”, when we blog. All bloggers practice journalism —you, me, Robin Hanson, Justin Wolfers, etc. As opposed to thinking of journalism only in terms of professional journalists, who carry the card.

    .

    2. Yes, the “inaccuracies” that I’ve printed “over the years” should be re-published and appended with corrections. We all progress by making mistakes and learning from them. I’m not above the crowd. Many times, I have published posts correcting old ones. If you think that a post should be written, assembling all the crap I have printed “over the years”, feel fee to do so. That’s the difference between new media and old media: with blogs, the authors can receive contradictions on the same medium they wrote on, for all to see.

  3. Jason Ruspini said:

    “- In October 2007, Robin Hanson, on the Overcoming Bias blog, re-published the falsehood that James Surowiecki (and 3 other book authors in their respective book) made a mistake about Francis Bacon in his book, The Wisdom Of Crowds.”

    Francis Bacon? hahaha

  4. Chris. F. Masse said:

    Funny enough. I have corrected. :-D

  5. Bo Cowgill said:

    Well, you’ve reported inaccurate info about my job title, family members and the question of whether I am a spy for Yahoo! or not, all of which had to be corrected. Hey, I only remember the ones that involve me (well, I remember your Hillary Clinton thing, too), but that seems to have been a lot for someone pointing out other people’s journalistic shortcomings.

  6. Chris. F. Masse said:

    1. Your job title. I used a non-updated version (*by you*) of your LinkedIn profile, and thus published inaccurate information about your job title —that was quickly corrected.

    .

    Just a remark. You changed your LinkedIn profile 3 times last year, if I’m correct. It’s up to you to update your LinkedIn profile, as soon as your job definition has changed. I was not the only one who saw the obsolete information on that profile, by the way.

    .

    2. Sorry to have associated yourself with a mister “Cowgill” who was a “connection” on your LinkedIn profile. Many other people who saw your LinkedIn profile also made that family connection, I bet.

    .

    3. A spy *on* Yahoo”, not a spy “for” Yahoo!. :-D My mistake, probably, was to confuse business intelligence and competitive intelligence. Sorry for that.

    .

    4. Tim Harford’s take can be discussed. In his first cite of me, I’m “translating” what Justin Wolfers wrote, who himself was just describing what the prediction markets revealed. In his second cite of my, I’m describing what the prediction markets revealed. To get a sense of the probabilities associated with these market-generated predictions, readers should look at the charts, which were published very prominently in both cases.

    .

    5. I have published more charts (which show the probabilities generated by the markets) than Bo Cowgill, Tim Harford, Justin Wolfers, and Tyler Cowen all together.

    .

    6. As for Tim Harford’s “inaccuracies”, take that:

    Adam Smith: an apology

    http://blogs.ft.com/undercover…..-an-a.html

    .

    7. Finally, I don’t get your whole point. The fact that I have published (and quickly corrected) some minor inaccuracies in the past should not prevent me from pointing to other people’s published inaccuracies. Same for you.

    .

  7. Chris. F. Masse said:

    You, too, can go and get yourself a gravatar (a face picture published near your comments on every blog enabled with this capability):

    http://www.gravatar.com/

  8. BetFair-TradeFair hire Bo Cowgill in an attempt to improve their ranking in Google web search results. | Midas Oracle .ORG said:

    […] many Internet jokes (associating me with a “Grandizer” I’ve never met); numerous inaccuracies have been published over the years on blogs about my person and my work at Google; my EXCELLENT […]

  9. Bo Cowgill said:

    Chris, you identify as a journalist, right? You’re not going to list all the inaccuracies you’ve printed over the years that have required correction?

  10. Chris. F. Masse said:

    1. Just a remark. Journalism is something we do when we blog for our audience. So, “we are all journalists, now”, when we blog. All bloggers practice journalism —you, me, Robin Hanson, Justin Wolfers, etc. As opposed to thinking of journalism only in terms of professional journalists, who carry the card.

    .

    2. Yes, the “inaccuracies” that I’ve printed “over the years” should be re-published and appended with corrections. We all progress by making mistakes and learning from them. I’m not above the crowd. Many times, I have published posts correcting old ones. If you think that a post should be written, assembling all the crap I have printed “over the years”, feel fee to do so. That’s the difference between new media and old media: with blogs, the authors can receive contradictions on the same medium they wrote on, for all to see.

  11. Jason Ruspini said:

    “- In October 2007, Robin Hanson, on the Overcoming Bias blog, re-published the falsehood that James Surowiecki (and 3 other book authors in their respective book) made a mistake about Francis Bacon in his book, The Wisdom Of Crowds.”

    Francis Bacon? hahaha

  12. Chris. F. Masse said:

    Funny enough. I have corrected. :-D

  13. Bo Cowgill said:

    Well, you’ve reported inaccurate info about my job title, family members and the question of whether I am a spy for Yahoo! or not, all of which had to be corrected. Hey, I only remember the ones that involve me (well, I remember your Hillary Clinton thing, too), but that seems to have been a lot for someone pointing out other people’s journalistic shortcomings.

  14. Chris. F. Masse said:

    1. Your job title. I used a non-updated version (*by you*) of your LinkedIn profile, and thus published inaccurate information about your job title —that was quickly corrected.

    .

    Just a remark. You changed your LinkedIn profile 3 times last year, if I’m correct. It’s up to you to update your LinkedIn profile, as soon as your job definition has changed. I was not the only one who saw the obsolete information on that profile, by the way.

    .

    2. Sorry to have associated yourself with a mister “Cowgill” who was a “connection” on your LinkedIn profile. Many other people who saw your LinkedIn profile also made that family connection, I bet.

    .

    3. A spy *on* Yahoo”, not a spy “for” Yahoo!. :-D My mistake, probably, was to confuse business intelligence and competitive intelligence. Sorry for that.

    .

    4. Tim Harford’s take can be discussed. In his first cite of me, I’m “translating” what Justin Wolfers wrote, who himself was just describing what the prediction markets revealed. In his second cite of my, I’m describing what the prediction markets revealed. To get a sense of the probabilities associated with these market-generated predictions, readers should look at the charts, which were published very prominently in both cases.

    .

    5. I have published more charts (which show the probabilities generated by the markets) than Bo Cowgill, Tim Harford, Justin Wolfers, and Tyler Cowen all together.

    .

    6. As for Tim Harford’s “inaccuracies”, take that:

    Adam Smith: an apology

    http://blogs.ft.com/undercover…..-an-a.html

    .

    7. Finally, I don’t get your whole point. The fact that I have published (and quickly corrected) some minor inaccuracies in the past should not prevent me from pointing to other people’s published inaccuracies. Same for you.

    .

  15. Chris. F. Masse said:

    You, too, can go and get yourself a gravatar (a face picture published near your comments on every blog enabled with this capability):

    http://www.gravatar.com/

  16. BetFair-TradeFair hire Bo Cowgill in an attempt to improve their ranking in Google web search results. | Midas Oracle .ORG said:

    […] many Internet jokes (associating me with a “Grandizer” I’ve never met); numerous inaccuracies have been published over the years on blogs about my person and my work at Google; my EXCELLENT […]

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