# At The Money: Filtering Noisy News

An episode of [Masters in Business](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/730188152), 17 Sep 2025, 15 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/4e4cd910-40a1-4619-a5f3-ae2b0012ffff/d62872bc-3de4-4b27-a670-b35b00f18686/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=5873a3cb-298f-40bc-b71f-ae2b0013000d

How can investors find usable signal amidst all of the outrageous, algorithm-driven, clickbait? Noisy headlines can be a distraction from your long-term goals. Michael Hiltzik covers business for the Los Angeles Times, is a two-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award and has authored numerous books on business. Each week, “At the Money” discusses an important topic in money management. From portfolio construction to taxes and cutting down on fees, join Barry Ritholtz to learn the best ways to put your money to work. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio studios, podcasts, radio news come on on the
[0:13] Speaker 1: US investor's face, a flood of noisy news, social media, TV, radio,
[0:31] Speaker 1: and more. None of it is tailored to you in particular,
[0:35] Speaker 1: and much of it appears to be outrageous algo driven clickbait.
[0:41] Speaker 1: What's an investor supposed to do to help us navigate this?
[0:45] Speaker 1: Let's bring in Pultzer Prize winning reporter Michael Hiltzik. He
[0:49] Speaker 1: covers business for the Los Angeles Times. He's a two
[0:52] Speaker 1: time winner of the Gerald Lobe Award, as well as
[0:56] Speaker 1: the author of numerous books on finance. Well, Michael, let's
[1:01] Speaker 1: start with this endless sea of noise. How do you
[1:05] Speaker 1: navigate this? How do you prioritize what's important and what's not.
[1:11] Speaker 2: Well, you know, it used to be said that that
[1:14] Speaker 2: newspaper readers know how to read their newspaper. You know,
[1:17] Speaker 2: they sort of, you know, assess what they see there,
[1:21] Speaker 2: you know, how it conforms to their own world views,
[1:25] Speaker 2: how it conforms to what they see in the outside
[1:29] Speaker 2: wide world of reality. And I think that's probably more
[1:34] Speaker 2: important now than it ever has been before. Newspaper reports
[1:41] Speaker 2: of data are always second order reports. Reporter who's looked
[1:49] Speaker 2: at the data, or an editor has dropped a page
[1:53] Speaker 2: or sent an email and said, you know, do something
[1:55] Speaker 2: on this report from this oud or the other. And
[2:00] Speaker 2: I think you always have to assess the source. As
[2:04] Speaker 2: we've talked about, you know, if we're talking about a
[2:07] Speaker 2: trade organization, well, a trade organization is basically a pr organization,
[2:13] Speaker 2: and it's going to put its own spin on whatever
[2:15] Speaker 2: number is it cooks up, and sometimes it puts spin
[2:18] Speaker 2: on numbers even before they're cooked up. If a trade
[2:22] Speaker 2: organization is citing a study from a supposedly independent group,
[2:28] Speaker 2: I want to know if they commissioned the study or
[2:31] Speaker 2: who commissioned it. And that's a mixture part of my assessment.
[2:37] Speaker 2: And I always ask, you know, if I'm calling a
[2:41] Speaker 2: lobbyists and saying, you know, you just cited this, you know,
[2:44] Speaker 2: supposedly third party analysis, you know, is it yours? Did
[2:50] Speaker 2: you commission this? And you know, if they're honest, they'll
[2:53] Speaker 2: they'll tell me. I just just one, you know, into
[2:58] Speaker 2: my email box, I think just the other day, and
[3:00] Speaker 2: I've asked but haven't gotten a reply. So that's that's
[3:05] Speaker 2: very important, and I think readers have to understand that
[3:08] Speaker 2: more than ever before. Certainly, you know more than in
[3:12] Speaker 2: my long career. Reporters are over worked. They don't have
[3:19] Speaker 2: the time to do their own work, so they will
[3:23] Speaker 2: basically take a press release from some data source and
[3:29] Speaker 2: parrot it regurgitate it. So I think it's important for
[3:35] Speaker 2: readers to do what I do, which is to check
[3:37] Speaker 2: the source and if they can go to the raw
[3:39] Speaker 2: material and make a judgment for themselves, intelligent investors should
[3:44] Speaker 2: be able to do that.
[3:45] Speaker 1: So that raises an obvious question, how do you tell
[3:49] Speaker 1: which sources are trustworthy? Who do you put on your
[3:53] Speaker 1: all star list? Who do you eliminate?
[3:56] Speaker 2: Well, there are a few sources and economics sources where
[3:59] Speaker 2: are on my all star list? You know, you and
[4:02] Speaker 2: your folks you know because I quote you with some frequency.
[4:07] Speaker 2: There are other organizations that have shown, you know, through
[4:10] Speaker 2: the test of time, to have been to have integrity
[4:14] Speaker 2: and how they interpret data. Uh And and then there
[4:18] Speaker 2: are some where you just want to factor in what
[4:23] Speaker 2: you know about their ideology, their their their funders, their history,
[4:30] Speaker 2: and that just you know, those simple inquiries will tell
[4:34] Speaker 2: you a lot about how you want to assess information
[4:38] Speaker 2: that comes at you from all these sources.
[4:41] Speaker 1: You mentioned reporters are pressed for time. So are investors.
[4:45] Speaker 1: You're kind of hinting at hey, this requires some time, effort,
[4:51] Speaker 1: and work in order to figure out what is a
[4:55] Speaker 1: credible source of reliable news and what is a little
[4:59] Speaker 1: more let's just call it unreliable.
[5:03] Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think I remember, you know, reading
[5:08] Speaker 2: Andy Tobias's book, you know, probably one of its earliest incarnations,
[5:13] Speaker 2: where he said, you know, what do you do if
[5:16] Speaker 2: a broker comes to you, you know, cold call or
[5:19] Speaker 2: someone you know and pitches an investment for you? And
[5:27] Speaker 2: what his advice was to say, well, you know, don't
[5:29] Speaker 2: invest in that investment, but see how it does. And
[5:32] Speaker 2: if it's done well, then maybe you want to listen
[5:34] Speaker 2: to this guy or col a little bit more closely
[5:39] Speaker 2: the next time. And I think that that's sort of
[5:43] Speaker 2: a good idea. More generally, you know, some reports will
[5:49] Speaker 2: be refuted or debunked fairly quickly, and some of these
[5:56] Speaker 2: sources will compile a record of inaccuracy or dishonesty, and
[6:02] Speaker 2: some will compile the record of reliability. And it takes time,
[6:07] Speaker 2: it takes attention, and I think investors, like readers and
[6:13] Speaker 2: reporters need to do their homework and we just see
[6:15] Speaker 2: that being more and more difficult, or just happening a
[6:18] Speaker 2: lot less than it used to.
[6:21] Speaker 1: I've been noticing what, at least to me, it seems
[6:25] Speaker 1: like more than ever, anecdotes and one off stories and
[6:29] Speaker 1: narrative tales. They just seem to be increasingly popular.
[6:33] Speaker 2: How do you.
[6:33] Speaker 1: Navigate through what is a compelling story? My Matthew friends
[6:39] Speaker 1: always say, and equals one? All right, so you have
[6:42] Speaker 1: not a data series, but that's one ancdote. How do
[6:47] Speaker 1: you manage that?
[6:48] Speaker 2: That's right? And sometimes the end one is oneself? So yeah, well, look, basically,
[7:02] Speaker 2: I've always been sort of averse to men on the
[7:04] Speaker 2: street stories because you know, a man on the street
[7:09] Speaker 2: or a woman on the street that's that is that
[7:11] Speaker 2: is an an equals one, and you really have no
[7:14] Speaker 2: idea what You can't really always tell what questions have
[7:18] Speaker 2: been asked, what this person knows. We've certainly seen, you know,
[7:22] Speaker 2: certainly during the inflation era under of the last few years,
[7:29] Speaker 2: we saw a lot of interviews with families in which
[7:34] Speaker 2: they talked about how much they're spending on this or
[7:36] Speaker 2: that commodity or or product and got it totally wrong.
[7:45] Speaker 2: And so I think that people can sort of compare
[7:50] Speaker 2: what they're reading to their own experience and if it's
[7:53] Speaker 2: really at odds that that's important to keep in mind.
[7:58] Speaker 2: So I think, I mean, I've gone, you know, I've
[8:02] Speaker 2: been assigned to do man on the street stories. But
[8:06] Speaker 2: you know, when they work, it's because you have a
[8:09] Speaker 2: narrow subject and you are dealing with people who are
[8:13] Speaker 2: in a position to know the answers to the questions
[8:16] Speaker 2: you were talking about, but sort of throwing in you know,
[8:20] Speaker 2: somebody who's standing online or you know, I used to say,
[8:24] Speaker 2: I was always suspicious of stories that quoted the driver
[8:30] Speaker 2: who brought the reporter from the airport to the first
[8:34] Speaker 2: class hotel in town. And we used to see that
[8:36] Speaker 2: when I was in Africa. You know, I could tell
[8:39] Speaker 2: you know, you know, the show for you know, sometimes
[8:42] Speaker 2: you know was labeled to hide. But yeah, so you
[8:48] Speaker 2: want to make sure that you know, if there's if
[8:51] Speaker 2: there are interviews with individuals or families or couples, that
[8:56] Speaker 2: there's more than one and that they seem to actually
[9:00] Speaker 2: know what they're talking about and they're talking about their
[9:03] Speaker 2: own experiences, and that they sound plausible. So these are wrong.
[9:09] Speaker 2: You know, the sort of tests that we have to
[9:12] Speaker 2: conduct in our in our daily lives.
[9:15] Speaker 1: What about social media? How do we avoid the worst
[9:18] Speaker 1: aspects of algorithmic height that seems to work its way
[9:23] Speaker 1: into mainstream media as well.
[9:26] Speaker 2: Uh yeah, well, certainly mainstream media stories that rely on
[9:30] Speaker 2: social media sourcing very suspect social media. Look, you know,
[9:40] Speaker 2: I was always a fan of Twitter. I would I
[9:44] Speaker 2: still do, you know, I still am a fan. I
[9:46] Speaker 2: think Twitter, you know, for all its faults, still has
[9:50] Speaker 2: a critical mass that alternatives like Bousky just haven't quite reached. So,
[10:00] Speaker 2: you know, with with X as we call it, I
[10:04] Speaker 2: think you can sort of wean out the wild nonsense.
[10:10] Speaker 2: I always liked X because I could curate my my
[10:15] Speaker 2: tweet timeline and rely on sources on that platform that
[10:24] Speaker 2: that I had come to know. It's more and more
[10:26] Speaker 2: difficult now, and it's harder to uh sort of you know,
[10:30] Speaker 2: get rid of, you know, some of the straws. But
[10:36] Speaker 2: you know, there are websites that that I go back
[10:40] Speaker 2: to over and over again. They're not all economic websites.
[10:42] Speaker 2: Sometimes they're writers who think the way I do. So
[10:48] Speaker 2: you know, I get reinforcement where I need it, and
[10:52] Speaker 2: then there are some that I just ignore, you know,
[10:56] Speaker 2: I'm you know, I have more time to myself because
[10:59] Speaker 2: I'm not paying any attention to a lot of the stuff.
[11:03] Speaker 1: Yeah, I found on Twitter curating your own lists on
[11:06] Speaker 1: different topics. For me, it's the economy, it's data and analytics,
[11:12] Speaker 1: it's behavioral finance. There are experts out there talking about
[11:17] Speaker 1: subjects that I like, and at least it's there's some
[11:22] Speaker 1: filtering process by creating a list, it's not going to
[11:25] Speaker 1: stop spam and other junk stuff from coming through. All right,
[11:29] Speaker 1: So we're talking about social media. I guess if we're
[11:32] Speaker 1: talking about news and problems, we have to discuss AI,
[11:38] Speaker 1: not just the hallucination, but the risk that that news
[11:42] Speaker 1: story you're reading is literally fake news, just something created
[11:48] Speaker 1: by AI cheaply. How do we navigate a world where
[11:53] Speaker 1: AI is cranking out a lot of artificial intelligence is
[11:58] Speaker 1: cranking out a lot of news that isn't exactly following
[12:03] Speaker 1: the rules of journalism.
[12:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, I should tell you that I am an AI skeptic.
[12:11] Speaker 2: I think, you know, some large percentage of AI claims
[12:16] Speaker 2: by developers and by clients is marketing in the same
[12:23] Speaker 2: way that you know dot Com used to be the
[12:26] Speaker 2: big marketing truth. Sure twenty five years ago now, and
[12:32] Speaker 2: so a lot of what is pitched as AI is
[12:34] Speaker 2: not really AI, and none of it is intelligence. I'm
[12:39] Speaker 2: not sure. I'm of two minds about whether people are
[12:44] Speaker 2: going to become better at at detecting AI creation or worse.
[12:52] Speaker 2: I think at the moment, there are giveaways that anyone
[12:58] Speaker 2: can see, you know, in the sometimes in the language
[13:03] Speaker 2: that's used, sometimes in the images that are created. We
[13:06] Speaker 2: see this over and over again, just you know, clearly
[13:10] Speaker 2: AI hallucinations. So you know, right now there's an AI
[13:16] Speaker 2: craze in an industry and including in the news industry,
[13:21] Speaker 2: and I think that's going to be a problem. I
[13:25] Speaker 2: think it's going to go bad. And I think, you know,
[13:31] Speaker 2: relying on AI is going to be something that you know,
[13:34] Speaker 2: when we look at it in the rearview mirror, we're
[13:36] Speaker 2: going to say, what were we thinking? You know, why
[13:39] Speaker 2: did we spend any money on this?
[13:41] Speaker 1: So to wrap up, apply common sense to your consumption
[13:45] Speaker 1: of news. Figure out who's trustworthy, what sources are accurate.
[13:50] Speaker 1: Put the time and effort in to identifying who's worthy
[13:54] Speaker 1: of your time and trust. Beware of social media, be
[13:58] Speaker 1: wary of a and don't be afraid to follow people
[14:04] Speaker 1: who have bylines that you trust, rather than just blindly
[14:08] Speaker 1: paying attention to any particular media source. It's worth understanding
[14:14] Speaker 1: what you're consuming and why, and staying on the right
[14:17] Speaker 1: side of accuracy. I'm Barry Ridults. You're listening to Bloomberg's
[14:22] Speaker 1: at the Money

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