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Comment by selmnoo | Hacker News Reader

I'd always thought Financial Times was a very decent news journal outlet, sure a little right-inclined but generally trustable much like the Economist. I thought they wouldn't be up to dirty tricks, then I saw the image they used for the Piketty article: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/e1f343ca-e281-11e3-89fd-00144...

They deliberately used that image (scratching his head, looking confused, etc.) to paint a certain narrative. That's just a really low way to go.

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I used to read the FT and the Economist thoroughly, and felt I was well informed. Maybe I thought they were high-quality publications because their ideology aligned with mine.

But I matured and my blind belief in the power of free, unregulated markets was challenged by many examples of abject market failure in the real world.

I still read FT and the Economist, but with a much more jaundiced eye. Much of what they say is reflexive, ideological, based on either blind belief or self-interest.

There's a reason the Economist doesn't credit articles to authors, so it appears as received wisdom from seasoned economists/political insiders instead of actually being written by a 20something hipster intern. If you save a few issues they will contradict themselves every couple of months especially on articles about Russia. where Putin is the hero of capitalism in one issue then an evil protectionist Bolshevik in another. Europe's future will be declared as under the whims of Russia then a few issues later they claim Russia has little influence. It's a borderline tabloid rag, so is the FT.

Everybody is biased. Having a somewhat left-of-centre bias myself, I like to read the FT and the Economist precisely because they don't simply reinforce my beliefs.

Does the FT maintain a firewall between the editorial board and the reporting of news staff? The Wall Street Journal, historically (though not as sure now that Rupert Murdoch owns it), has had such a distinction...a predominantly rightward editorial staff but relatively even-handed news reporting.

The thing you have to remember about the British press (and the majority of their readership) is, more than anything else, they love taking someone of notoriety down a peg. You can just hear the tuts and proclamations of "well this is why you don't stick your neck out!"

Yes, I observed the same thing. And they keep using this image for several articles.

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