Hacker News Reader

Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

> Members of the press, including counsel for The New York Times and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, had filed letters objecting to Bankman-Fried’s detention, citing free speech concerns.

> The final straw, according to prosecutors, was Bankman-Fried leaking private diary entries of his ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, to the New York Times. Ellison pleaded guilty to federal charges in Dec. 2022.

> The government added that Bankman-Fried had over 100 phone calls with one of the authors of the Times story prior to publication – many of which lasted for approximately 20 minutes.

It seems someone at The NY Times is very sympathetic to him.

View on HN

> "It seems someone at The NY Times is very sympathetic to him."

Has their coverage of him been positive? I've not read any of it so I don't have a clue, but in a hypothetical situation where you're a journalist at NYT who thinks he's a guilty & idiotic asshole, if he wanted to call you and start chatting away wouldn't you still take the calls and accept any documents he leaks to you despite not being sympathetic to him?

It feels like to make the claim in your last sentence you need to show one or more articles that paint him sympathetically since his arrest, not just the fact that one or more journalists haven't refused to speak with him?

Yes, very sympathetic IMO. Publishing parts of opposing witness Caroline's diary at his request, an act that was viewed as witness tampering [1].

Allowing him to speak at DealBook summit after he lost customer funds: "The DealBook Summit included Sam Bankman-Fried, who said he was “deeply sorry” about the collapse of FTX. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Andy Jassy and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine also spoke." [2]

In general you don't give a storytelling platform to your enemies. Ever seen a NYTimes article titled "Vladimir Putin: In His Own Words"?

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/technology/ftx-caroline-e... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/technology/ftx-caroline-e...

The NYT keeps offering him rope in the form of a sympathetic ear, and SBF keeps hanging himself.

If the NYT is his friend, I would hate to see what his enemies have in mind for him.

> [Sam Trabucco] also writes crossword puzzles for The New York Times [0]

> US prosecutors have not said Trabucco was involved in any wrongdoing even as he worked in Alameda's C-suite with several execs who are now facing a slew of charges. [1]

hmm

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Trabucco

[1] https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/meet-sam...

Writing some crossword puzzles for the Times is about the smallest quantum amount of "juice" a person could possibly have.

How does someone get such a job? It’s not like the nyt puts out an online app, screens thousands, then picks a random individual. It’s always going to be through personal networks.

I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic or not, but the NYT crossword does in fact accept, use, and even encourage random people to submit crosswords.

I mean there's only like one person who has the job of "Crossword Making Guy" and it's Will Shortz, the crossword editor for the NYT.

If you want to get your crossword published by the NYTimes, all you have to do is write a good one and submit it.

I've met a guy who has a couple of crosswords published by them. He didn't have personal connections with anyone, he's not anyone special, he's a regular guy with a regular job. What did he have to do? He liked crosswords and tried writing them, then submitted them. They got accepted and published, that's it. There's no shadowy cabal of crossword writers secretly running the world.

> It seems someone at The NY Times is very sympathetic to him.

It's more likely (and all but certain) that persons involved with him or his ventures have meaningful influence at the NYT. Sympathy has little meaning in the presence of structural interests.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com