NY Times Forced to Correct Error-Riddled ‘Wall Street Psychopaths’ Op-Ed
- Posted on May 22, 2012 at 1:58pm by
Becket Adams
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The New York Times ran an opinion editorial, “Capitalists and Other Psychopaths,” on May 13 by author William Deresiewicz wherein, citing a “recent study,” he claimed that 10 percent of people who work on Wall Street are “clinical psychopaths.”
However, this simply isn’t true and the New York Times was forced to print a correction:
Correction: May 20, 2012
An opinion essay on May 13 about ethics and capitalism misstated the findings of a 2010 study on psychopathy in corporations. The study found that 4 percent of a sample of 203 corporate professionals met a clinical threshold for being described as psychopaths, not that 10 percent of people who work on Wall Street are clinical psychopaths. In addition, the study, in the journal Behavioral Sciences and the Law, was not based on a representative sample; the authors of the study say that the 4 percent figure cannot be generalized to the larger population of corporate managers and executives.
As you can see, the correction clearly undercuts the entire point of the Deresiewicz article (which is to argue that a large number of wealthy capitalists and Wall Street professionals are “lying, cheating and stealing” psychopaths).
But despite the Times’ mea culpa, Tom Blumer of Newsbusters was not impressed and explains why the op-ed was so wrong.
“The Times appears not to regret publishing an egregiously dishonest item,” Blumer writes, adding that the story falls apart because “its linchpin is a study of ‘corporate professionals,‘ not of ’people who work on Wall Street.’”
“As John Grohol at Psych Central…has noted, Deresiewicz almost definitely failed to take even the most basic steps to verify what…he must have seen as too good to check,” he adds.
Blumer brings up an important point in the study of the 203 “professionals”:
… many journalists and reporters nowadays just rely on professionals to make a claim, and don’t ever challenge or bother to verify the claim. I’m not sure why this is, but it seems to be the new defacto standard.
But this claim — a 1000 percent increase in a specific population — should’ve raised red flags everywhere. Such a huge discrepancy should be easy to verify in the scientific literature, since it screams, “This is an important finding!”
Hare did indeed co-author a paper that examined “corporate psychopathy,” with colleagues Paul Babiak and Craig Neumann (2010). It did not look at the financial services industry specifically. The research used a sample that consisted of 203 corporate professionals from 7 different companies, selected by their companies to participate in management development programs from all areas of industry.
So what he’s saying is that these people weren’t even in charge of anything.
“How in the world do you start with a study showing that 4% of a narrow group of 203 management development trainees might be psychopaths, turn them all into financial services professionals, transform all of them into ‘those who work on Wall Street,’ and increase the psychopathic frequency from 4% to 10%?” an understandably incredulous Blumer asks.
Deresiewicz failed to point out the 203 “professionals” were all trainees who don’t even remotely represent a broad range of professionals. Moreover, the sources he links to do very little to substantiate his claims.
“The bottom line is that Deresiewicz based his screed on nothing of substance while pretending that he was loaded with it,” Blumer writes.
While it’s commendable that the Times owned up to its mistake and corrected the factually inaccurate op-ed, the damage has already been done and the narrative is out there: 10 percent of everyone on Wall Street is a certifiable psychopath.
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Comments (49)
Zalbert
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 5:45pmBased on recent history, I’d place the % of psycopaths/ sociopaths on ws closer to 100%
Report Post »COFemale
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 7:22pmWell of course you do, that is what Liberals do exaggerate the data. Why you are not any different than writers at Media Matters, HuffPo, NY Slimes and all the others.
EricAZ
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 9:47pmYou’re right. OWS folks do seem to have issues across the board since they are not coherent, live in squalor, and do not show any basic organization skills.
Report Post »Link8on
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 11:40pmPosted by the 99% of unbathroomed parkland moochers .
Report Post »Zalbert
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 6:05pmI am probably a hell of alot more “conservative” than you. I simply have no use for the parasites on ws that produce absolutely nothing, but exist under the current US/ european economic model for the sole purpose of extracting control of resources, natural or manmade, for the sole benefit of a few. Before you respond, please be prepared to demonstrate with objective evidence, a single thing beneficial to the COUNTRY produced by a bankster. And I am multi degreed and employed, by the way. Are you?
Report Post »Wannabee
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 5:40pmAnother clearcut justification for canceling my subscription to the NYT. Retraction or admitting to error is useless, they know what they are doing. The One-time prestigious and valuable NP has become the lowest of the lows. The only thing they would react to is bankruptcy. When George Soros or Warren Buffet buy them, the remaining readers will consist only of their kind.
Report Post »jungle J
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 4:47pm70% of Americans are mentally ill.
Report Post »tommyg524
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 9:46pmamen. how can u not be ill living in the armpit of the world, the corporate states of gre=EEEEEED
Report Post »Twobyfour
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 11:15pmTommy, you apparently belong to the envy people.
You see, greed can be transformed into positive aspects, ambition and drive to succeed despite adversities. The proverbial greedy archetype is a theoretical construct, it does not exist in a pure form.
Envy, on the other hand, exists only in its pure form. There is nothing to transform it into. It’s thus more deadly sin than greed.
Report Post »DocScience
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 4:15pmWho needs REAL facts when you can create them out of thin air?
Report Post »Canada_Goose
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 4:12pmIf FNC actually did this they would need a two hour special to cover off just the last broadcast month.
Report Post »Therightsofbilly
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 4:36pmWhat?
Report Post »Canada_Goose
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 5:06pmSorry am I not being clear, If FNC decided to correct the litany of factual errors they broadcast they would need a two hour special just to cover off the previous month.
Report Post »Psychosis
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 6:23pmyet you tools NEVER submit any proof
go yank someone elses pud loser
Report Post »COFemale
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 7:28pmYep mentally ill. LOL. I would put FNC accuracy over MSNBC (Microsofts Nothing But Crap) any day. MSNBC could never catch up too all their inaccurate news cast. They lie by omission.
Report Post »Matrix22
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 4:04pmCome on trolls…where are you to defend this garbage?
Report Post »mickey16
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 3:42pmHow about a study to determine how much of what is printed n the NYT is factually acurate. And you can’t claim the By Line is factually acurate if the story has been plagerized!
Report Post »dietrdeb
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 3:42pmI wonder what percent of Journalists are clinical PSYCHOPATHS!
Report Post »poster
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 3:33pm“The Red Lady” gets it wrong again, and again, and again…
Why don’t they just change their name to “Pravda”?
Report Post »Tri-ox
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 3:31pmIt is not very often that an ‘obama 2012’ propaganda outlet issues a correction.
Report Post »MaxMagician
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 3:30pmWhen I read this headline, I thought the NYT was referring to the protestors. You know, the ones crapping on cop cars. Then I realized that number would be far more than 10%.
Report Post »lainer51
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 3:13pmIf that is the case, think how high the percentage is in Washington?
Report Post »NYT is sooo irrelevant and desperate, which they didnt suck so much I could almost feel sorry for them.
elosogrande
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:58pmThe media lie to American citizens all the time, and that’s okay, but if they lie to Congress, that’s not okay; because it is against the law to lie to Congress. You can go to jail if you lie to Congress. A case in point is the thousands of man-hours Congress has pissed away, trying to convict Roger Clemons – a baseball player – of lying to Congress. This Congress and thirty Congresses before this one, have put The American Taxpayer $16 trillion dollars in debt and climbing, but they don’t have time to fix the problem; yet they have all the time in the world to worry about whether or not a useless baseball player lied to them. Who cares if a useless baseball player lies to a useless Congress?
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. It’s against the law to lie to The United States Congress, but all 535 of those useless, corrupt, incompetent buffoons lie to you and to me on a daily basis, yet Congress doesn’t see that as a problem. Stop putting up with this crap! You can vote all of the Representatives and one-third of the Senate out of office in November. It‘s time to let them know that they can’t lie to us and stay in office. Not one is worth keeping – vote them all out!
Report Post »BoyScout_Mom
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 3:15pmHere here. Amen.
Report Post »woebegone
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:53pmBTW–the prevalence of of psychopathy (also known as sociopathy) in the male population is 3%, adult female is 1%– see DSM IV. SO assuming that the original study used appropriate criteria and methodology this is not that much of a deviation from the general population. Which is interesting as psychopaths presumably would be a sub-population particularly drawn to anywhere where the money is–as such in fact one would expect it to be much much higher. (In violent incarcerated offenders it’s greater than 40%) The author of the NYT article altered his numbers to achieve his “means to an end”–ironically this makes him quite eligible for meeting the criteria for the diagnosis of psychopathy himself. Funny how that happens–but there it is. This discussion doesn’t even take up the other inconsistencies well outlined in the Blaze article.
Report Post »So no one reads the NYT, or watches MSNBC, or CNN–when when these venerable institutions realize that they have been taken over from within. I’d like to see the study of sociopathy, and personality disorders in general conducted in these venues–it would be fascinating.
Therightsofbilly
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:40pm“Saul The News That’s Fit To Print”
Report Post »The-Monk
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 6:38pmHi Billy,
Nice pun!
I‘ve been thinking about your JZSaul interpretation of JZS’s moniker and wondered if the JS stood for Joseph Stalin. So I looked up Joseph Stalin’s middle name and found it was Vissarionovich. : (
Then I remembered that lots of families name the Son after the Father but change the middle name.
What do you think the “Z” might stand for? Joseph Z Stalin = JZS? Just a thought…. : )
Report Post »Therightsofbilly
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 10:10pm“Zaul”
Report Post »drphil69
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:34pmA study on the psychopaths at NYT would be vastly more interesting… any guesses? 20%? 50%?
Report Post »AJAYW
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 3:04pm80% would be a more responsiable reporting number
Report Post »OhioRifleman
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 3:14pmI’m guessing 35%, give or take 5%. Some of them may have a psychological compulsion to do so, the rest simply have their lips permanently attached to Obama/Soros/VanJones’ arses.
Report Post »AxelPhantom
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:33pmMore “pop” psychology from those who know nothing except to read a wiki article.
Irresponsible.
Report Post »Prof. Undity
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:32pmHow quaint; the National average for severe mental illnesses is 4.6 percent. Ergo, with this new admission by the NYTs, Wall Street workers are statistically below the National average.
I wonder if the NYT’s writer is from Rhode Island?
http://blogs.wpri.com/2011/10/06/study-rhode-island-has-highest-rates-of-mental-illness-in-us/
Report Post »strawberry411a
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:25pmWhy even care. The NYT’s is as credible as a 9th grade school newspaper: emotions, lies, distortions, agendas and gossip.
Report Post »gsplgtr
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:24pmDeresiewisc was “full of it”, alright! LOL Sounds like a typical psycho-liberal to me.
Report Post »RJJinGadsden
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:24pmIf this is so, then apparently close to the remaining 90% work for one source of the media or other.
Report Post »MDDAWG
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:36pmYou’re absolutely correct, RJ. If they did a study of liberals, 98% would meet the criteria for “psychopath.”
Report Post »Shasta
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:54pm@MDDAWG you are correct, unless of course the liberals are responsible for defining the term psychopaths. They are already re-writing history books…
Report Post »RougeFastFingers
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:19pmNY Times new logo, striking ‘all the news that’s fit to print’:
Who cares if its true, we WANT to believe it!
Report Post »cookcountypatriot
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:12pmwhat he meant to say was,,,that all the progressive slaves that work for the nyt,s are severly retarded….yea,,thats what he meant to say
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:11pmLet’s see… 4% are Psychopaths… 4% are Gay… seem like a Standard Devidation that Nature provides!
Report Post »Mark0331
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:25pm…just a matter of time before the trolls show up using this NYT ‘quote’ as fact…they are dumb enough to believe anything they read….like, just say, Islam is a religion of peace…;-)
Report Post »progressiveslayer
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:06pm99% of the ‘journalists’ that work for that rag are ‘clinical psychopaths’.
Report Post »johnjamison
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:14pmtHEY DON’T CARE BECAUSE THE LIE IS ON THE FRONT PAGE IN BOLD PRINT AND THE RETRACTION IS ON PAGE 23 IN THE BOTTON RIGHT HAND CORNER.
Report Post »Everyone see the lie but only those who actually read the entire paper see the retraction. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
DrFrost
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:37pmLOL! The New York Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun and a few others seemed to be more concerned about pushing an agenda than reporting the truth. I‘d like to say there are none of these types on the right but we both know I’d be wrong. It’s a… sign of the times if you will. If this sounds familiar you might recognize the following:
“Another remarkable and unexpected symptom of national decline is the intensification
of internal political hatreds. One would have expected that, when the survival of the nation became precarious, political factions would drop their rivalry and stand shoulder-to-shoulder to save their country. [...text deleted...] True to the normal course followed by nations in decline, internal differences are not reconciled in an attempt to save the nation. On the contrary, internal rivalries become more acute, as the nation becomes weaker.” – Sir John Glubb discussing common characteristics of countries in decline in The Fate of Empires
Politicians that spew forth hatred and foul language need to be shown the door. That‘s a sure sign that they’re letting their emotions rule their behavior. That is the exact opposite of what we need right now. We need cool heads. We need men of character willing to make the hard choices.
Report Post »