I'm not biased towards the NYT, what I'm saying is that what the NYT is doing is a different thing from this article. The NYT is an interview with SBF, interspersed with the story of what happened, and the NYT will stick to what it can actually prove. You're pissed the NYT is biased towards SBF but it's not - it's an literally an interview with SBF, you're not meant to take what SBF is saying in there uncritically.
Whereas this article has a tonne of speculation (none of the stuff about market making has fact behind it, it's speculation based on a handful of tweets) and a heavy reliance on sources that are at best questionable. The stuff about the rogue algo is entirely without evidence, and the stuff about drug taking, whilst lurid, could be entirely tangential to why the company actually collapsed. The NYT isn't going to quote random anonymous users on an EA forum claiming to be ex-employees.
The NYT is not supposed to 'stick with what they can prove'.
That's definitely not the bar they have or else they wouldn't be able to publish much.
Journalists should be a bit cynical, dig for info. The NYT has more resources than anyone, and should be able to ask around, do some actual blockchain work, interview others.
This story looks like one of the biggest frauds in history, likely because it is, it's the job of the NYT to show at least there's a lot of smoke and put puzzle pieces together (obviously with context), they are not a formal judiciary.
There are so, so many crazy parts of this story that were not addressed it reeks of something awry. For example the co-CEO. There's almost nothing about this guy, as though he does not exist. That's a huge mystery and it's only one small artifact of the story.
This article raises as much suspicion as it clears up.
They might be working on that article, but such an article will take time because they'll want to reach out to the anonymous posters and talk to them directly, find people who can do the chain analysis, verify people's stories, etc.
It's pretty insane to me that you think the NYT would ever deliberately print accusations they couldn't prove.
I also think you're massively overstating the role of the NY Times, yes they have resources but they have to cover massive breadth. The NY Times isn't really going to be an expert in every topic, and there are real expert reporters out there who are going to dig in to this for specialist information. In this case there are reporters covering tech and finance - so you're going to see good articles from Levine, and the Odd Lots people, Michael Lewis was literally shadowing SBF for 6 months. Arguably the Odd Lots guys got to this first - basically getting SBF to admit he was running a ponzi in an interview - an admission that made absolutely no difference because everyone kind of knew it was all a scam anyway. If you said to me there's an article about FTX I would be looking for it in Bloomberg or the FT, not the NYT.
"NYT would ever deliberately print accusations they couldn't prove."
That statement implies a misrepresentation of what I said, and a misunderstanding of what journalists do.
Journalist investigate, source, and provide clarity.
This is one of the biggest frauds in history, it's the job of the NYT to investigate the issue, and show us what's up. If there's likely fraud, they should be spelling that out.
They've already admitted to using deposits to make risky bets at Alameda, which is fraud. There should have been a lot more questions about that alone. Just to start.
Instead, it was a light nothingburger puff piece.
There are better sourced artifacts on Twitter - this very article provides more valuable information that the NYT.
"basically getting SBF to admit he was running a ponzi in an interview - an admission that made absolutely no difference because everyone kind of knew it was all a scam anyway"
To suggest that the people with collectively billions in FTX 'knew it was a ponzi/fraud' and willingly lost all of their money is absurd.
> It's pretty insane to me that you think the NYT would ever deliberately print accusations they couldn't prove.
What are they doing when they cite "unnamed sources"? They constantly publish accusations that they have no intention of ever backing up. I'm not saying that they don't believe their sources, but "100% bulletproof" has never been their standard.
Whereas this article has a tonne of speculation (none of the stuff about market making has fact behind it, it's speculation based on a handful of tweets) and a heavy reliance on sources that are at best questionable. The stuff about the rogue algo is entirely without evidence, and the stuff about drug taking, whilst lurid, could be entirely tangential to why the company actually collapsed. The NYT isn't going to quote random anonymous users on an EA forum claiming to be ex-employees.