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> The most interest aspect in the FTX saga, for me, is that SBF was treated very gently by major news outlets (and maybe by government regulators too)... until regular individuals in social media started asking: Why is SBF being treated so kindly? Why would journalists (and regulators) assume that SBF meant well?

This wasn't universally true. See the VICE coverage for example.

The "old" media bought into SBF in exactly the same way it bought into Elizabeth Holmes, presumably for some of the same reasons. They have a strong bias/gravity towards covering "wunderkind" entrepreneurs, and they do "access journalism" with these people. It's more about their personal lives and personalities, because that's the story that always sells.

In addition, most outlets (including the NYT) have had a massive blind spot into how shady everything in the crypto space really is. They've long bought the bullshit, and many of their "crypto reporters" are unquestioning crypto bros who basically are industry mouthpieces rather than real journalists. So in a sense they're actually complicit in all the scams and losses, because they've boosted the fiction that "crypto" is somehow legitimate.

One has to hope that a corner has finally turned here, and SBF's highly visible fall will cause these "old" outlets to start doing actual real journalism on the whole "industry" rather than just fluff pieces and boosterism.

> The most interest aspect in the FTX saga, for me, is that SBF was treated very gently by major news outlets (and maybe by government regulators too)... until regular individuals in social media started asking: Why is SBF being treated so kindly? Why would journalists (and regulators) assume that SBF meant well?

I went through a few examples people brought up of journalists supposedly treating Bankman-Fried kindly the other day[1]. When I read what journalists were actually saying, they were quite negative about Bankman-Fried (saying he was "betraying his clients" or saying FTX "didn’t crumble due to bad luck, but what now appears to be unsustainable layers of deception").

The crypto community seems to be trying really hard to deflect from the fallout of yet another major crypto scam, and spinning whatever they can to make this seem like this is the fault of establishment non-crypto folks. Remember that just a few days ago people were claiming that Bankman-Fried hadn't been charged because he had paid off U.S. politicians.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33811681

crypto community seems to be trying really hard to deflect from the fallout of yet another major crypto scam

For the last few months, any time something bad happens with FTX, there are dozens of people who show up complaining that the media went easy on SBF. They most often use the word "puff" or the phrase "puff piece," as if the comments were all written by the same bot farm.

Then when someone calls them out on it, they're suddenly silent. Which makes me agree with you that this is people trying to deflect from the greed at the root of this, trying to portray themselves as victims, and if the big media had just given them some warning, they wouldn't have lost billions of dollars.

Agreed, it's eye-rollingly obvious how cadres of users have been parroting talking points for various circles, some as an attempt at distraction/deflection and others as an attempt at political gain. It all appears to boil down to beating the same "lamestream media" horse. Never let a good crisis go waste, as they say.

> Several months ago, I found myself having a few mocktails and splitting vegan snacks with Sam Bankman-Fried at a restaurant near my house. We touched on, among other things, his proposal to create a new publication featuring writers he liked, including me.

> I declined, which obviously in retrospect was the right choice. I told him that I like my Substack just fine and make plenty of money, though he was happy to offer more. But I also told him that given the extent to which we agree on a lot of important issues, I thought it was a lot more valuable to these causes for me to maintain credibility by not accepting any of his money.

Meanwhile the CEO of The Block received a $43M "loan" from SBF[1].

[1] https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/the-breakdown-with-nlw/sbf...

>> When I read what journalists were actually saying, they were quite negative about Bankman-Fried

I think the issue was there was no pressing follow up to his evasive replies. e.g Sorkin's interview. He was basically allowed to get away with "I didn't knowingly do it."

Sometimes they don't follow up because the statement is obviously evasive nonsense and readers will see it. Just letting them say damning things on the record is a win.

And if you don't confront them, maybe they'll say even more? It's like the military quote: "never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake."

Well lets be completely honest then...

And sometimes they don't confront them because the media are shills.

10 lies on 10 different topics is of greater value than spending an hour trying to pin down the one gotcha line on 1 thing.

In effect Sorkin et al interviews has MADE the fraud case for the government. The lies are evidence there was intent to defraud.

Perhaps because of SBF's own hubris and not due to the way he was questioned ?

I think it was the response to coffeezilla questions that might have him in a bind not the other mainstream journalists.

What you say seem plausible but, as an observer not privy to things, I am not sure how one can differentiate when someone is being allowed to get away versus being goaded to say incriminating things.

But If you look at the written coverage at NYT about this, you will realize that in this case it is the former and not the latter. Yes one can argue that it might have been a plan to make him comfortable to talk at the interview - but yeah :).

May be it is too subtle for me.

Your definition of "quite negative" and mine are very different. When it comes to situations like this (regarding a young man, his criminal misbehavior, and insitutional response to that behavior e.g., mass shooters), I generally go back to the New York Times' infamous characterization of Michael Brown - a black teenager shot dead in the street and in broad daylight, over a box of cigarillos, by a police officer with a checkered professional history - as "no angel" (among other declarations). If you can't muster something perhaps at least as critical for an older young man who has nuked a measure of wealth equivalent to about half the GDP of the country where his company was based (or, the total wealth of ~50,000 Americans at the median net worth; or, a few hundred million boxes of cigarillos), well... Maybe you're going easy on him.

It's naive to think that affinity is not influencing, if not driving, the way that journalists regard and write about their subjects.

SBF didn’t believe in his effective altruism slogan. He basically admitted in the texts to the reporter he thought would be private that the EA stuff was BS.

Also, I’m not sure what you mean by “treated kindly”.

If you’re talking about why he wasn’t arrested yet, it’s obvious because the SEC was building its case, and more so because he was voluntarily going on public forums and publicly admitting increasing levels of guilt.

I never understood the people complaining about why he wasn’t arrested yet. If you’re a prosecutor making a case against someone, why would you stop them from going to the media and publicly boasting about new crimes?

they are referring to this: https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/11/15/lets-talk-about-t...

> “Disgusting complicity on the part of the New York Times. He has ruined countless people's lives by theft and fraud, and NYT is now helping him to delay or evade justice by whitewashing him in their prestigious, influential newspaper. I doubt this is just a mistake on their part,” Zcash co-creator Zooko Wilcox said.

This is a dumb take. They did not help him delay or evade anything.

One could argue that the old way of journalism needs to be modernized for people who have challenges with context and understanding, like this quote demonstrates. Maybe expand on the concept of trigger warnings that detail things to consider while reading an article. Things that were common knowledge years ago, but seem to have been left in the dust.

Or maybe the NYT tried, but failed.

I sat down and read the NYT article. It's not that glamorous for SBF--at best, it paints him as someone in way over his head, but I'm not sure that's a fair characterization. It's somewhat humanizing, but largely in a "what is the CEO thinking as their business falls to ash around them?"--it intersperses the interview with notes about how the company was probably lying at times, and the most contentious questions are summarized as "interviewee doesn't want to talk about them." I wouldn't characterize it as a puff piece, but I think the complaints are largely that people wanted it to be a thorough evisceration of Crypto Enemy Number One.

This is a good point. Journalists get dinged for trying to pull out the truth. Andrew Ross Sorkin's interview with SBF seems like a case in point.

> SBF didn’t believe in his effective altruism slogan.

That's not what I meant.

What I meant is that before FTX's implosion, anything you would read, hear, or see about SBF would make it seem as if he actually believed in it!

Positive PR can be bought. SBF had tons of money. I'm not surprised.

Rather than vaguely alluding, it seems simple enough to provide at least a handful of links to sources with references to the passages in question, no? Nothing that I have read seems to be as breathlessly gushing as commenters repeatedly claim them to be.

>He basically admitted in the texts to the reporter he thought would be private that the EA stuff was BS.

interested, source?

they may be referring to this article...

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-frie...

Interesting, though that seems to be talking about “ethical” vs “sketchy” behavior, which is not quite the same as Effective Altruism principles.

I too am interested if anyone has a source that quotes SBF saying that his EA involvement was in any way inauthentic.

You keep using the phrase "valued in elite circles". I honestly don't think many of these traits are actually valued in elite circles. The perception of these traits is valuable. The values...I'm not so sure. Quite a bit of energy in elite circles is spent on curating an image, rather than actually being decent. You have a whole set of social rules that you follow to distinguish you from the lesser people, and it's all about following the rules, not actually being genuine. Actually being genuine- well, you're kind of a naïve sucker, and even worse- you're unpredictable. Honesty is only valued so far as you follow the rules, and are honest about your own rational self interest when doing business. Hard work and high intelligence are definitely valued, but even more valuable is the person that is intelligent enough to not work hard.

In my armhchair opinion, the Illusion of these values is simply a descendant of the feudal concept of Chivalry- it's important to have rules and social norms to establish an in-group of trust, and just as important for the non-elite to know that the elites have their best interest in mind, via "effective altruism"- because the elites are also honest, hard-working people, that got there through their honest hard work. And hey, maybe you can join that club if you invest in the right trustworthy person.

I'll guess the word "elite" here is not really the best term to convey what parent meant. The phrase "valued in elite circles" at first made me think of George Soros types, in which case the values don't fit. But I think parent meant more of the avocado toast NPR/NYT column writer types when he said "elites", in which case the values described make more sense.

I'll disagree on the point about ability to explain crypto protocols/algorithms. You're either in tech and have a body of knowledge that preps you to understand the details and then you might care about it, or you don't really care about how it works. I don't think there's a group of "elites" of any kind that care too much about you explaining how crypto works.

> The most interest aspect in the FTX saga, for me, is that SBF was treated very gently by major news outlets (and maybe by government regulators too)...

He wasnt

> until regular individuals in social media started asking

And there is the crux ... until blah blah. "twitter" didnt get them over the line to arrest him. Neither I nor "twitter" can prove a counter factual but it is just a fantasy of people who have read and written too much shitty fan fiction that SBF was never going to get investigated

A lot of people have made this argument -- that he was treated gently -- but to me that looks like good old-fashioned journalism. People have become so acclimated to the decline of objective journalism that when they see it, something seems off.

Yeah. People seem to be bizarrely fixated on the bits of stories where they mention what SBF was famous for and quote his excuses and don't state that he's definitely guilty of this crime that we were waiting to see if he'd be charged with, and miss the point that the headline is that the guy is accused of a serious crime and articles on famous people accused of crimes usually mention what they're famous for even if that's good, quote a denial/excuse if there is one and don't announce what they're guilty of before they've even been charged with anything.

Sure, he did more full-blown interviews than most people accused of serious crimes, but that's mainly because most of them listen to their lawyers.

If media outlets actually felt particularly kindly disposed towards SBF, they'd be deploying the rhetorical tricks used to defend their favourite politicians (can we trust the investigators? aren't the big losers in FX the sort of financial institutions that were taking calculated risks anyway? and how many of them go to jail when they lose their customers' money? aren't other crypto institutions much worse and what's their role in Alameda's collapse? maybe he actually he could win all that money back, he's made billions before?) not talking about how a one time darling of the Effective Altruism movement and former billionaire is under investigation after his brokerage collapsed after he allegedly transferred its customers' funds to prop up his other failing company. No matter how much biographical detail gets included beforehand, that's not a rosy picture.

Arthur Hayes has written extensively [0] on these points.

[0]: https://blog.bitmex.com/white-boy/

Really enjoyed reading that, thanks!

I hate the title. What if this was the other way round?

You have about 300+ years of history to rewrite before it could ever even approach being the other way around.

HIStory

I think it just took some parts of the media a few days to sort through the noise and pick up what the most important developments actually were, and perhaps get the necessary confirmations on the meaningful developments (and lack of confirmation on the wrong ones).

It takes any profession time to correct mistakes and get the story right, but the media have the unenviable task of trying to do that very very quickly.

Most of these seem to boil down to "he seemed like a smart guy who knew what he was doing and wanted to help people." That's basic grifting. It seems odd to say that it only works on elites.

Particularly the last. Elites love to help people, unlike common folks who are too selfish to fall for a con like this? That's the opposite of the usual stereotype.

Or it just took some time to put the indictment together... I wonder which one is a simpler explanation...

Occam's razor. I think the explanation for this treatment is much simpler, investment. Lots of these mainstream media corps probably have some interest in dammage control in crypto's price.. or they were being persuaded to be gentle by influential contacts in finance with intrest in stability. For instance, we know now Black Rock had a very significant stake in FTX. Its not totally crazy to think they might have reached out to Bloomberg or the Financial Times to keep the pressure off SBF.

Consider the alternative where the media "slammed" SBF on the daily, it would further discredit crypto and lead to a faster decline in value, therefore it would be harder for financial institutions to efficiently devest from crypto without significant losses.

Sorry, typed this on my phone.

From what I can see money, wealth and power are valued in elite circles, not sure about what else.

To me this is just one more nail in the coffin of institutional media. There is clearly bias baked into reporting at the institutional level now, and no desire to uproot it. This is what makes independent media so important today.

Agreed, I think it's institutional. Particularly, the reporters at the big news firms come from privileged backgrounds, are biased towards their own, and use the access that comes with their privilege to further their careers. Those who come from modest backgrounds aspire to join the ranks of the privileged, necessary to further their careers, by sucking up to those above them. "Access journalism" intrinsically favors privileged journalists and incentivizes journalists from less fortunate backgrounds to play along.

>The most interest aspect in the FTX saga, for me, is that SBF was treated very gently by major news outlets (and maybe by government regulators too)... until regular individuals in social media started asking: Why is SBF being treated so kindly? Why would journalists (and regulators) assume that SBF meant well?

More interesting to me is that the DoJ moved to arrest SBF the night before he was set to testify in Congress. When else have prosecutors moved so aggressively to stop a defendant from making self-incriminating statements? His testimony would be admissible and likely devastating at trial

> Why would journalists (and regulators) assume that SBF meant well?

On "meant well", this seems the mirror of attacking one's motive. I noticed that journalists loved to assume the worst of the people they don't like and assume the best of those they do like. Attacking one's motive is really a malicious logical fallacy, as it's practically impossible to defend against such attacks. I really hope journalists focus on what people do instead.

The only thing gentle about how he was treated pre-collapse is that they didn't preface every article with a comparison to MtGox and a disclaimer to avoid the scam.

Madoff was treated very gently for decades.

Incidentally, here's the list of real estate in the Bahamas purchased with FTX funds.[1] Here's the "Albany resort", where most of those properties are.[2]

There was discussion earlier about prosecutors having to prove criminal intent. Did this happen by accident, or were those guys stealing the money for their own benefit? It doesn't matter much what Bankman-Fried has been saying. When the prosecutors have to convince a jury of criminal intent, expect those pictures of the Albany resort to be shown. They didn't buy all those luxury condos with FTX funds by accident.

[1] https://restructuring.ra.kroll.com/FTX/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=...

[2] https://www.albanybahamas.com/

There are more curious details surrounding his parents. And you've neglected to point out the SEC connections.

Also, how many lawyers has Sam had now? Who are they? Who have they previously represented?

There's more to the story.

Impressed no discussion here of his large donations to the Democratic Party. That’s the main talking point in conservative circles, whether accurate or not.

* His last name is Bankman which suggests he descends from a bloodline of bankers -- bankers are trusted, valued and admired in elite circles

The establishment protects its own.

I would guess some number of people in these newsrooms either:

1) Don't understand anything about bitcoin 2) Own bitcoin and don't want to do something that would push the price lower