Posted on 12/16/2014 6:35:16 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Old and busted, legacy media edition: Layers of fact checkers and editors. New hotness: “There was this one time, in band camp …” Yet another big, splashy mainstream media story has collapsed, although the damage from New York Magazine’s tall tale of a teen-genius stock traders and the New York Post’s follow-up is entirely limited to the two publications’ reputations. Jessica Pressler wrote this weekend that Mo Islam, a 17-year-old student, had amassed a $72 million fortune during his participation in a high-school trading club, apparently without asking some basic questions about how a minor could trade and how anyone could have possibly made that much money in such a short period of time.
The answer: It’s all a hoax. The New York Observer did the fact-checking that neither NY Magazine or the Post bothered to do, and found at the center a couple of teens who made up rumors out of whole cloth:
Monday’s edition of New York magazine includes an irresistible story about a Stuyvesant High senior named Mohammed Islam who had made a fortune investing in the stock market. Reporter Jessica Pressler wrote regarding the precise number, “Though he is shy about the $72 million number, he confirmed his net worth is in the “’high eight figures.’” The New York Post followed up with a story of its own, with the fat figure playing a key role in the headline: “High school student scores $72M playing the stock market.”
And now it turns out, the real number is … zero.
In an exclusive interview with Mr. Islam and his friend Damir Tulemaganbetov, who also featured heavily in the New York story, the baby faced boys who dress in suits with tie clips came clean. Swept up in a tide of media adulation, they made the whole thing up.
Speaking at the offices of their newly hired crisis pr firm, 5WPR, and handled by a phalanx of four, including the lawyer Ed Mermelstein of RheemBell & Mermelstein, Mr. Islam told a story that will be familiar to just about any 12th grader—a fib turns into a lie turns into a rumor turns into a bunch of mainstream media stories and invitations to appear on CNBC.
As late as Monday, Pressler publicly pronounced herself satisfied with her own reporting. NY Magazine also stuck by the story, even while the Observer put its subject on the record explaining it was all nonsense. Pressler and the magazine claimed to have seen bank records with an astronomical balance, but the two students at the center of the hoax say all of the trades were simulated. Presumably, so was the bank balance.
The Observer’s Ken Kurson offers a little advice to reporters who come across too-good-to-be-true stories, especially from high-school students:
No one asked for my opinion, but I’m going to provide it anyway, having sat with these kids for a good bit on a tough day. They got carried away. They’re not children. But they’re not quite adults, either, and at least Mr. Islam was literally quaking as we spoke. So yeah, they probably should have known better. But New York and the New York Post probably should have, as well. This story smelled fishy the instant it appeared and a quick dance with the calculator probably would have saved these young men—and a couple reporters—some embarrassment.
Kurson doesn’t put it quite as plainly as this, but here’s some better advice: Check the facts. There is a perverse relationship in both this and the Rolling Stone’s “Jackie” narrative in which the more outrageous the claims became, the less the reporter felt compelled to perform due diligence on them. The story was just too good to check in both cases. But that’s where the supposed “layers of fact checkers and editors” are supposed to work — to keep hoaxes and fabulism from gaining credence in mainstream magazines. It’s not just the reporters in these cases who are at fault, but the entire publication chain.
Speaking of Rolling Stone, Erik Wemple punched another hole in the “Jackie” narrative yesterday evening:
The controversy around the alleged gang rape has overshadowed other claims in the story by writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely. In addition to describing Jackie’s alleged assault, the Rolling Stone piece follows her through interactions with rape survivors and with the university administration. Thanks to her “ever expanding network,” writes Erdely, “Jackie had come across something deeply disturbing: two other young women who, she says, confided that they, too, had recently been Phi Kappa Psi gang-rape victims.” In May 2014, the story notes, Jackie apprisedAssociate Dean of Students Nicole P. Eramo of these gang-rape allegations. Erdely breaks down the cases: “One, she says, is a 2013 graduate, who’d told Jackie that she’d been gang-raped as a freshman at the Phi Psi house. The other was a first-year whose worried friends had called Jackie after the girl had come home wearing no pants. Jackie said the girl told her she’d been assaulted by four men in a Phi Psi bathroom while a fifth watched,” writes Erdely in the story.
What has come of these claims? …
If these allegations followed the same pattern as those regarding the seven-man rape, Rolling Stone needed no corroboration beyond Jackie’s statements. For evidence that the magazine didn’t fully corroborate the other claims, here’s how it represents the reporting about the two other alleged victims: “(Neither woman was willing to talk to RS.)”
In this story, Rolling Stone has vested such disclosures with vast possibilities. Many readers might suppose that “neither woman was willing to talk to RS” means that Erdely called and e-mailed them, but they refused to be interviewed. We know from other parts of the story, however, that such conclusions may be wrong. For instance, “A Rape on Campus” notes that one of Jackie’s friends — the pseudonymous “Randall” — “declined to be interviewed.” The Post later reported that “Randall” “was never contacted by Rolling Stone and would have agreed to an interview.” Also, Rolling Stone has conceded that it didn’t contact Jackie’s alleged assailants in deference to her wishes.
So: How does Rolling Stone know that these other alleged victims of gang rape at Phi Kappa Psi were unwilling to talk? We’ve asked the magazine about that, and they haven’t gotten back to us about it.
This looks like another case in which a reporter with an axe to grind found a story she liked to be just “too good to check,” along with her editors all the way up the chain at Rolling Stone. Unlike the teen-genius trader story, though, this one did real damage to people outside a newsroom, and that damage is continuing. It’s why fact checks and healthy skepticism need to be employed before a media outlet prints stories, and not afterward.
Too bad the hoax didn’t last a few more days or the young ‘’genius’’ would have been given a multi-million-dollar job at a Wall Street hedge fund.
for later
Yep... or they would have gone to prison for not paying their taxes....
You need at least a couple of elements to make a hoax like this into a media sensation. First, you need media people who don’t know much of anything about finance—the outlets mentioned are most likely staffed with people who have little knowledge of basic business, trading, or economics. I doubt any of them know how a trade is made.
Second, you need a culture of sensationalism—this is a core element of most media outlets.
Voila! You have a HS student who trades his way to $72M. Nobody with basic knowledge of investments and trading would have been fooled by this story. It takes a special degree of ignorance.
Thoughts:
A. My guess is the IRS had already started investigating him, with mixed thoughts.. They hunger for the tax to be collected but hate to take it from a privileged minority.
B. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a reporter, or any liberal for that matter, to feel shame. Just newsfodder to keep people from thinking about the monster debt, the illegals coming in with their hands out and their diseases spreading..
The media has been propagandizing for so long now they’re suseptible to other liars. They don’t know the truth, they hide the truth.
Apparently the reporter hasn’t tried to set up a brokerage account lately. Let me tell you, it isn’t as easy as signing a piece of paper. They want to know all sorts of information, including age, SS#, past trading experience, NET WORTH, bank account info, etc.
And you must provide documentation of some of this information, including a official PICTURE IDENTIFICATION such as a Drivers License, passport, etc.
Assuming this teen had a official picture ID, I don’t think he would have looked of age to set up an account to start with.
“Mo Islam”? Surely no one saw this as a joke????
Who needs Mo Islam? Not me.....
Tomorrow’s Headline:
“Prince Albert is in a can!”
His name s “Mohammed Islam?”...sheesh...people are soooo gullible
There is no need for the IRS to do any investigation. Brokerage houses report all trades on a 1099, and after 2011 that includes the cost basis as well. If you ‘forget’, a computer will send you an automated bill.
“There is no need for the IRS to do any investigation”
My spider senses tell me, if the IRS heard about a guy making 77 million, they would probably have someone ‘take a quick peek’ at the guys file.
“Journalism” today is a pathetic joke. There are exceptions, but not many.
I said “I smell a rat” when I first heard of it. Now it’s a hoax. The media is crashing and burning at an incredible rate. I hope then all end up in ashes.
Does this guy look like he is 17 years old?
Even those eyeglasses look fake.
Mo and his co-conspirator have admitted it’s a hoax. By the way, Mo Islam looks like a giant frog waiting to croak.
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