# Was the New York Times wrong to have interviewed SBF?

**Published by:** [Durwin](https://paragraph.com/@durwin/)
**Published on:** 2023-02-17
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@durwin/was-the-new-york-times-wrong-to-have-interviewed-sbf

## Content

Sam once managed a multi-billion crypto empire and was the poster boy of the crypto world.Few months back, when FTX crashed and burned, it shocked the world. It was shocking because of the scale of it all and that it was crypto’s golden boy Sam Bankman-Fried who was behind all of it. Every big-name VC and user of FTX got a huge slap in the face. But really what shocked me was the fact that SBF happily went on a media blitz, giving interviews and refusing to shut up after FTX blew up right in his face. Make no mistake about it. FTX’s collapse left a horrible wake of destruction in its path. Billions were lost, millions of lives affected and it punched a damning hole right at the heart of crypto, at a time when crypto was bleeding the most. It wasn’t pretty.Honestly, if you were NY times, would you have passed on interviewing SBF?Then, instead of remorse, apologies and a hint of sincerity, you get this young punk, the mastermind who seemingly orchestrated the entire “fraud”, going around giving interviews to virtually anyone who wanted to ask him questions. It was perplexing at best and arrogant at worst. What really made me fell off my seat was when the big boys gave him a podium to speak and try clarifying his views. When the New York Times invited SBF to be interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin live, it was frankly a very bold move. They wanted to ask the questions everyone was thinking about and confront the perpetrator. Why would they do such a thing?SBF cultivated an image of a whizzkid, crypto-genius persona who play video games, ingests nootropics and sleeps at his desk.How do you balance journalistic integrity and promoting a fraudster? Why provide a platform for a person who potentially destroyed the lives of millions? Where do you carefully draw the line on what is ethical and what is not? I have to admit that Andrew was not easy on the questioning and he did as best a job as he could. It is just that SBF was living in his own reality and refused to answer questions straight up. He was dodging and dipping, slipping and sliding, like a slippery worm covered in gelatin. Some would say that all the interview did was provided SBF a momentary vestige of clearing his conscience in front of the world. Others would say that the NYT was just milking the hot button issue and trying to get as many eyeballs as they could.Everytime someone in crypto tells us it is “fine”, it is definitely NOT.Think about it from NYT’s point of view. They had the exclusive opportunity; they were one of the first to be able to grill the most wanted man in crypto and they know this is what will sell. Would you have let it slip? Would you have denied doing the interview and let someone else snag the opportunity instead? Its a capitalistic, cut-throat and mean world out there. The NYT did what the NYT had to do to win. They really didn’t have much of a choice to be honest. The real question was why SBF was so desperate to go on a media interview galore?Why did SBF decide to go for a media tour right after the FTX collapse?Crash an entire market worth billions, gets world-wide interest in being interviewed. You have to give it to the whiz kid with the giant afro. Go watch the interview. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous, childish, inexperienced or just not thinking straight. He really sounded like a crypto bro who was given billions to gamble and didn’t know what to say after losing it all. Anyways, will all these media interviews harm him more in his upcoming trial? Let’s see in due time. - Was the New York Times wrong to have interviewed SBF? - #startups #business #startupx #socialmedia #eth #btc #crypto #ftx #ftt #bearmarket #sbf #sambankmanfried #andrewsorkin #newyorktimes #interview

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