I don’t buy the notion that “journalism” can ever be uninfluenced by its owners and financiers. Taibbi tried to peddle this old line.

Now a bitcoin outlet called The Block turns out to be LBO’d by Bankman-Fried. The Block is making the same absurd claim:

No one at The Block had any knowledge of this financial arrangement besides Mike,” Moran said in a statement. “From our own experience, we have seen no evidence that Mike ever sought to improperly influence the newsroom or research teams, particularly in their coverage of SBF, FTX and Alameda Research.”

Stop it. Money always talks, ESPECIALLY when the company is in the talking business.

The connection might be unimportant for a hedge fund LBOing a retailer or a railroad. In those cases the hedge fund is only interested in killing the company and stealing its physical assets, not rebranding the products for propaganda.

When the company’s business is reporting on the activities of the buyer, you can’t possibly claim that the buyer is only interested in stealing money from the business. He wants to shape the reporting, and he will.