Fair and Balanced?

In a blog post from last week, Reuters blogger Felix Salmon writes about the (often misleading) coverage of hedge funds by the media, in particular citing a Bloomberg article about an irrelevant and utterly "out there" hedge fund.

He writes: "But more to the point, why is Bloomberg writing about these guys, given that they have zero demonstrated ability to get taken seriously by anybody with real money to invest? The reporter, Netty Ismail, quotes the co-founder of the firm as saying with a straight face that $100 million would be a “good” amount to raise, despite the fact that there’s no indication whatsoever that he’s raised anything like that sum in the past. If a well-known fund manager with a proven track record came out with a fund like this, that might be interesting. But this looks like little more than a marketing gimmick, designed — successfully, it would seem — to get press.

Incidentally, it would be nice if anybody writing about small and startup hedge funds did a bit of due diligence on them first. Before writing about firms like this as though they’re legitimate, any reporter should first confirm that they are legitimate — perhaps by asking to speak to their prime broker or asking to see some audited accounts for prior years. Otherwise, what’s to stop any old fraudster from calling himself a hedge fund, getting a couple of credulous Bloomberg stories, raising a few million, and retiring to the beach?"

This post got me thinking about how the media covers both hedge funds and vulture funds. Often, articles or blogs are written and published without giving equal weight to both sides. What happened to "fair and balanced"?