The chairman and chief investment officer at Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio, has posted a response to a front-page New York Times article that was critical of the firm and its culture. He writes:
we again find ourselves in the position of being left with no choice but to respond to sensationalistic and inaccurate stories, both to make clear what is true and to do our part in fighting against the growing trend of media distortion. To let such significant mischaracterizations of our business stand would be unfair to our hard-working employees and valued clients who understand the reality of our culture and values.
Good for Mr. Dalio for taking advantage of the opportunity the Internet offers to answer articles like this without having to resort to some "letter to the editor" policed by the newspaper that launched the attack. As for "the growing trend of media distortion," unfortunately there's nothing like being on the business end of an example of it to concentrate one's attention on the problem. Surely detailed, real-time responses like Mr. Dalio's are going to be an important part of any solution to that problem; the trick is establishing a distribution method that allows the reply to catch up with the original distortion.