[marcus_holmes]

Journalists making a story more controversial by tailoring which bits of a speech to quote? How incredibly unusual.

Oh wait, no. The other thing. The thing about never trusting anything you read, especially if it was written by someone who has something to gain by manipulating your emotions.

[skrebbel]

What does a badly paid Bloomberg reporter have to gain by making me feel like Jack Ma is a mean person?

[marcus_holmes]

I ran a newspaper for a while, so this is how the business model goes:

reporters write stories. Those stories are judged on "traction" - how much interaction and general "buzz" they get. The more views, comments, shares, likes, etc, that a story gets, the better the journalist has done their job. Truth doesn't come into it. The best stories are the most controversial ones, because people share them more.

the paper gets paid for adverts and subscriptions. Adverts are viewed when people read stories. The stories that get the most views are controversial ones that people share.

All stories are passed through an editorial process. That process does things like correct typos and grammar mistakes, but it also edits for "punchiness" and potential engagement. It's very common for a "boring" story to get edited (or the journalist told to re-edit) to make it more interesting, more controversial, more engaging.

So by taking a fairly banal story of Jack Ma saying some obvious things, and editing it so that it appears that he's saying some outrageous things, the journalist gets the buzz they need, and the newspaper gets a bunch of "free" advert views when people share the story on social media.

No-one's lying - Jack Ma did say those things. The journalists involved can maintain a straight face while saying they're just reporting the truth. Meanwhile, everyone gets paid and they get another day in a very, very threatened industry. Jack Ma's pissed off, of course, but he's a billionaire, he can cope.

[yourbandsucks]

Emotional response -> clicks. They need clicks to keep their job.

[rmrfrmrf]

Bloomberg reporters get bonuses for writing stories that affect the market. Seriously.

[CogitoCogito]

I've heard this so many times and it just seems so ludicrous. How does one even prove that a specific article "affected the market". What degree need an article "affect the market" in order to qualify? How does one measure this? To whom does a reporter submit a "reimbursement for market effect" form?

I mean I guess if I saw some proof of these claims I might change my mind, but at the moment it seems totally naive.

edit: Here's an article that discusses it (for the moment I'll just assume their anonymous sources are correct which is a bit ridiculous to assume coming from a rival news source):

https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-compensa...

> There's nothing wrong with a news story moving the market: It means a story is important.

I think this is really the key. Bloomberg's news is financial in nature. Basically any big story will have a market effect. So basically in this instance "moving the market" might just be equivalent to "being a big story". So if it's bad to give bonuses based upon market-moving stories, it's bad to give bonuses on big stories.

Regardless the whole thing side-steps the important question anyway. Are the articles they post actually true? That's the only thing people should concern themselves with.

[acct1771]

They don't care about the reason it moves the market.

They just know people will feel compelled to read their publications if they're consistently affecting the market.

[stuffedBelly]

Nope, this is not true (from someone I know who's working at Bloomberg).

[robjan]

Market manipulation is illegal and it would be pretty obvious if Bloomberg was participating in this activity

[kevinmchugh]

It's not market manipulation to research and publish novel and important business stories.

[differentView]

That's a serious accusation. Do you have evidence to back that up?