5 ms·
I never understand the "Quietly" part in headlines like this. The fact that it's headline news is kind of self-refuting, and even without that, where do people
by sixhobbits 7y ago
I never understand the "Quietly" part in headlines like this. The fact that it's headline news is kind of self-refuting, and even without that, where do people usually shout about the positions that they're selling?
- grenoire 7y agoIt is quite a large sum of money and if there has been no official statement from the company which did the offloading, then it is said to be quietly.
- nolok 7y agoExcept $500M barely register for a company the size of NBCUniversal; it is not "quite a large sum of money" for them at all. Their yearly revenue are above 30 Billions.
- rolltiide 7y ago> Except $500M barely register for a company the size of NBCUniversal Since it was in Comcast's quarterly report, it was large enough to "register".
- adventured 7y agoThe quietly part makes it sound more scandalous or suggestive, which drives clicks to an otherwise boring story. The only time I see people shout about positions they're selling, is when they absolutely have to unload in a hurry, so they go max wide on the potential buyer attention campaign. Magic Leap's recent public humiliation / desperation, is an example of this in action.
- nolok 7y agoIt's part of the headline newsspeak bingo game. My personnal dislike is to "this SLAMS that". It's one of the many many reason why news sites lose value and identity, everything is instant, everything is a big news, everything is written in a way that shocks to get clics and views, and the actual information comes second place.
- scumbert 7y agoSlams is way too common. It's very hard to read the news without seeing "slams" somewhere.
- state_less 7y agoAnd other violent primal words like ‘rips’ and ‘lashes out’ are often employed too. It’s no wonder it feels like living in a digital jungle.
- Pigo 7y agoMy favorite is the question headlines. Is Mexico in talks with the US about drug cartels? Are you chicken nuggets covered in covid-19? Is Trump ritualistically sacrificing children in the oval office? They're leaving it up in the air, so you can't call them on writing garbage they barely try to back up.
- AdrianEGraphene 7y agoWhipsers from around corner Pssst, hey kid... Wanna buy $500M of Snapchat stock?
- rolltiide 7y ago> I never understand the "Quietly" part in headlines like this. The fact that it's headline news is kind of self-refuting It was in Comcast's quarterly report filed on January 31st, but even then it would need to be compared to the prior quarterly report 3 months earlier. So nobody - with write access to any website - noticed until March 9th. > and even without that, where do people usually shout about the positions that they're selling? Form 3 Form 4 Form 13F Anyway, NBC was not within reporting thresholds for Snapchat.
- aeturnum 7y agoThis is both a financial ("will this investment make money?") and a signaling ("what does (not)owning Snap say about us?") decision. They say "quietly" because NBCU didn't publicize this at all, suggesting that they liked the signal of buying Snap, but no longer like the financial investment. You could compare this to Sequoia walking away Finix two days ago[1], where Sequoia wanted to be very loud and squash the financial signal by letting Finix keep the money. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527943