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Comment by JoshGG | Hacker News Reader

Says a lot about whether you can trust the WSJ.

"Convicted fraudster pardons convicted fraudster therefore you can trust convicted fraudster."

Wild!

Why would you say that? The article was basically a hit piece on the guy. "We can trust you" was a quote from an associate, as you surely remember from when you read the whole article.

Messaging is attention-weighted. It always has been, but the exploitation of this fact has been on the rise and in 2026 everyone should know it and internalize the consequences: if you signal boost statement A and bury nuance B, you are promoting statement A, flat out, completely independent of what B brings to the table.

"We can trust you now" has quotations marks in the title. That means a verbatim quote from a source. Sure, messaging should be clear, but we must expect basic reading comprehension and jornalistic literacy from people that participate in a place like a Computer Science forum, while reading The Wall Street Journal.

'We Can Trust You Now' is a quote in the story from the subject. The subject himself claims:

“I walk into meetings now, and I’ll get high-fives from the most wealthy people in the world,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Welcome to the club. You can withstand the fire. We can trust you now.’”

The WSJ interviewed him and is reporting information about his past. I think the article portrays him as extremely shady and untrustworthy. Not sure what you could be seeing here to demean the WSJ.

Shades of Goodfellas when Henry did his time and was welcomed back with open arms.

There's a school of thought that reporting on a bad person without coming out and saying "this is a bad person" is akin to endorsing that person.

Myself, I think people are mature enough to be able to read past a headline and come away from this with a clear eyed view of this fraudster.

My rule has always been, forgive people, but never forget what they did. After they've made restitution, help them back to their feet, but don't let them ever get to the place where they can fail the same way. And whatever you do, don't let them get into a leadership position. They've already proved they can't help themselves when the pressure in on.

> forgive people, but never forget what they did.

How many times are you willing to forgive? Trevor has seen prison only once. But frauds? Many.

Personally, I almost always forgive, however, I never allow that person to take advantage of me again. Trust has to be the gold standard. To err in human, thus forgive. To be taken advantage again by the same person is foolish.

I agree with you on the first part. But, if one needs to read past headline to find the opposite of the headline is truth, headline deserves all the criticism in the world.

Headline is what is presented to the world. Headline is the claim being made to people who dont find the topic interesting. And majority of the people dont find all the fine details of pardoned CEO situation interesting. So, yes, if the headline lies, the news deserve to be criticized.

> I think people are mature enough to be able to read past a headline

What trainwreck of misconceptions could possibly compel an otherwise reasonable person to believe something so ridiculous?

And pretty much rule number 1 is if someone says "you can trust me" you cant' trust them. Trustworthy people generally don't need to say things like that.

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