MMasters in Business
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17 September 2025

At The Money: Filtering Noisy News

2Frameworks
3Insights

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Frameworks in this episode

Mindset5 steps

Anecdote Credibility Test

Test stories for breadth, knowledge, relevance, and plausibility

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Strategy5 steps

Source Provenance and Reliability Audit

Trace information to its incentives, evidence, and historical accuracy

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Hot Take· 1

Hot Take12:06

The AI Boom May Be Repeating Dot-Com Marketing Hype

Hiltzik says many claims labeled as artificial intelligence are primarily marketing, comparing the label with the dot-com branding craze. He expects indiscriminate newsroom reliance on AI to age badly, although he remains uncertain whether people will become better or worse at detecting synthetic content.

  • Many AI claims may be marketing rather than meaningful capability
  • The AI label resembles earlier dot-com branding
  • Current synthetic content still contains visible giveaways
  • News-industry reliance on AI may create serious credibility problems

“some large percentage of AI claims by developers and by clients is marketing in the same way that you know dot Com used to be…”

Michael Hiltzik · 12:11

“when we look at it in the rearview mirror, we're going to say, what were we thinking? You know, why did we spend any money…”

Michael Hiltzik · 13:31
#artificial-intelligence#media#hype#fake-news

Explainer· 1

Explainer01:41

Why Financial Reporting Can Become Repackaged PR

Hiltzik argues that newsroom time pressure can prevent reporters from independently examining data. As a result, press releases and interested organizations' interpretations may pass through journalism with too little scrutiny.

  • News reports of data are secondary interpretations
  • Overworked reporters may lack time for independent analysis
  • Press releases can be repeated rather than verified
  • Readers should distinguish reporting from original evidence

“Newspaper reports of data are always second order reports.”

Michael Hiltzik · 01:41

“Reporters are over worked. They don't have the time to do their own work, so they will basically take a press release from some data…”

Michael Hiltzik · 03:12
#journalism#public-relations#financial-news#media-literacy

Tool· 1

Tool09:26

Turn Social Media Into a Curated Expert Feed

Hiltzik and Ritholtz describe manually curating trusted accounts and topic-specific lists rather than consuming an algorithmic feed indiscriminately. The approach cannot eliminate spam, but it reduces exposure to irrelevant noise and makes established expertise easier to find.

  • Curate sources instead of accepting the default timeline
  • Build topic-specific lists around areas of interest
  • Favor accounts with an established record
  • Ignore low-value material to recover attention

“I always liked X because I could curate my my tweet timeline and rely on sources on that platform that that I had come to…”

Michael Hiltzik · 10:10

“I have more time to myself because I'm not paying any attention to a lot of the stuff.”

Michael Hiltzik · 10:56
#social-media#twitter#curation#attention