WSJ defends its Dalio/Bridgewater reporting

The Wall Street Journal is defending its covering of money manager Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, who took to LinkedIn to criticize an article, reports Amy Whyte of Institutional Investor.

Whyte reports, “The LinkedIn post, entitled ‘The Wall Street Journal’s Fake and Distorted News,’ does not focus on addressing specific errors in the article. Instead, Dalio spends the bulk of the post criticizing the Journal’s reporting process, claiming that writers Rachael Levy and Rob Copeland ‘had a goal and story in mind long before there were any facts.’ The Bridgewater founder further alleged that Copeland had a conflict of interest in reporting on the hedge fund firm because he ‘had previously interviewed at Bridgewater and wasn’t hired because he wasn’t up to doing the job.’

“According to Dalio, investigative reporters such as Levy and Copeland ‘gather whatever negative bits and pieces they can come up with’ from anonymous sources and then ‘dismiss the on-the-record statements about the inaccuracies, saying that they are inconsistent with what they heard from their undisclosed sources.’ The Journal’s article cites ‘current and former employees’ of Bridgewater, noting that the firm ‘bars employees from independently speaking with the press’ and that Bridgewater executives declined to be interviewed for the article.

“‘Rob Copeland and Rachael Levy are well respected journalists and their reporting is fair and accurate,’ Steve Severinghaus, senior director of communications for Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, said in an emailed statement. ‘Responses from Bridgewater Associates were solicited well in advance of publication and included in the final article. Mr. Dalio is simply complaining about factual reporting he does not like.'”