Bitcoin Forum

Why do news websites write about a Bitcoin CEO?

Are they just stupid, or are they doing it on purpose to irritate people?

Sources
Bitcoin CEO Spent Embezzled Funds on Prostitutes (http://profit.ndtv.com/news/corporates/article-bitcoin-ceo-spent-embezzled-funds-on-prostitutes-reports-1237326)
Bitcoin's CEO in Jail Over Fraud Charges (https://i.imgur.com/ISV9Jaw.jpg)
Bitcoin CEO Found Dead in Suspected Suicide (http://hollywoodlife.com/2014/03/05/bitcoin-ceo-dead-suspected-suicide-autumn-radtke-dies/)
Bitcoin CEO's arrest leaves trail of unanswered questions (http://news.yahoo.com/bitcoin-ceos-arrest-leaves-trail-unanswered-questions-070415714.html)
etc

Maybe to grab attention>  ::) ::)

But it's funny that that find it so hard to type the word 'Exchange' along with 'Bitcoin' which makes it 'Bitcoin Exchange' CEO.................

Because we are still on the very early stages and most people have no idea of what's going on. They have no notions of what a decentralized system is, they think that MT Gox was literally the Bitcoin headquarters and that Karpeles was the inventor and CEO of Bitcoin, they don't even report about Satoshi! Amazing journalism :D

Because the sentance is technically correct, even though it is incredibly misleading. And the news media outlets are not experts on bitcoin, they're just trying to write a story. So they may genuinely believe that  bitcoin has a CEO.

I don't think they do it intentionally to irritate people. If it bothers you, you should mention the misleading point of view in the comments section related to the article - this will help inform readers and the journalist on their mistakes.

I believe it has nothing to do with them not knowing that there's no such thing as a bitcoin CEO. It's just a publicity stunt intentionally made, not to provoke people, but just
to sell news and cause threads like these, in order to get their sites more exposure and backlinks.
It's just trash news and should be taken as such.

Bitcoin is a peer to peer network and there is no CEO of Bitcoin. I dont understand why they write "Bitcoin CEO". This prove that those reporter did not do their research and quickly publish their news. Not to worries. As time goes on, more and more people will know about it - Bitcoin have no CEO, those editor did a bad job.

If the president of Delta Airlines raped a little alterboy, the writer could write: "Airline CEO raped boy".   Of course, there is no CEO of all Airlines, but it does technically make sense.  So, same for Bitcoin.  There is (was) a Bitcoin company and the CEO of that company is in jail.  'A Bitcoin CEO is in jail'  The article 'a' is implicit when writing 'Bitcoin CEO...'  Just like 'Airline CEO'.

So, as it turns out, you are the stupid one Mallard.  lol!!!

btw, I have no information whether or not the CEO of Delta really did or did not rape an alterboy.  But if he were a priest, I wouldn't bet against it.

Hmm.. It is technically correct. Not many people know Bitcoin is what. So when their write "Bitcoin CEO" the first impression is that "Bitcoin" is a company. It is not like "Airline CEO" or "Restaurant Chef" - first impression is one of the many Airline or Restaurant CEO/Chef.

Headlines are often short and leave out words.

Sometimes it can be misleading or confusing

The mean "CEO of a company related to Bitcoin"

Just like how before Google was a well recognized name the CEO of Google might have been referred to as an "internet CEO" because he's the CEO of an Internet company.

Sure it's a bit weird, but it's short and if people don't know what mt Gox is it's easier that way.

It's all about grabbing those headlines. They're using "Bitcoin" to describe the industry. In that way, sure it could be compared to "Airline" CEO. Bitcoin is an hot topic, and as such adding it to title draws more readers. They have many options for an headline:

• Bitcoin CEO Spent Embezzled Funds on Prostitutes
• Exchange CEO Spent Embezzled Funds on Prostitutes
• Tech CEO Spent Embezzled Funds on Prostitutes
• CEO Spent Embezzled Funds on Prostitutes

It's their job to pick the one that will get most attention.

But the quote below is plain wrong because they added 's.
It implies that Bitcoin is an entity that has an CEO.

i was thinking exactly this, but when some of these articles write it as:
it just shows a lack of understanding on the writer's part.

that's just bad journalism, to write what should be informative articles on a topic without the sufficient knowledge to actually make an accurate, resourceful article.

It is just an example of bad journalism. I think if we ask those so called journalist even how bitcoin technology works, they will be speechless. They are just trying to attract readers attention. I remember them calling mt. gox ceo as bitcoin ceo in past for so long period, even till now.

remember the good old days when media only employed people with skills and qualifications..

where they would get fired for not spelling words correctly.
where they would get fired for not showing the editor proof and research to corroborate the story before it was printed.
where they would get fired if the newspaper had to make a retraction..

well those days are gone. media is now made by bloggers who cant even be bothered to use spell check or spend a couple hours researching.
media is now just a copy and paste affair, nothings original, nothing is useful and nothing holds much merit..

Because they don't have any Better news to write, so they just made it up for keep doing their job.
Or they indeed didn't understand about Bitcoin???

it's a common misconception, because usually they want to refer to an exchange, notice how they talk most of the time about exchange when doing this error

but then they forgot to add "bitcoin exchange ceo", i beggining to believe that this is done on purpose some time

I think both and there are even more reasons: to draw attention to their articles, to look like they know something we don't or even with the intention to be the one who invented the term "Bitcoin CEO". )

The higher the profile or the rank of the people doing these things, the more attention it gets and most of these journalist are to lazy to do proper research and then post shit like

that. After the first one got away with it, the rest of them follow and it just got out of control. If this was printed in my local paper, I would have wrote to them, and they would

have had to corrected themselves in the next issue. Doing this online on sites where people cannot leave comments or where the comments are moderated, makes things so much

more difficult.  >:(

Just ignorance. Journalist/writers are not always well informed.

In fact, I somewhat understand them. Sometimes you have to write about a lot of different things in a month and you cannot be well informed about all terminology. Others you do not require a lot of precision to just transmit to the masses the idea that some person related to Bitcoin did such thing.

Yes, it would be great for them to be precise, but probably it takes more effort to do it that it is worth FOR THEM (not the readers) to do so.

The media has to defend the fiat system so of course they will attack bitcoin every chance they get. They do the same crap with gold.

yahoo news is at fault in one case
http://news.yahoo.com/bitcoin-ceos-arrest-leaves-trail-unanswered-questions-070415714.html

the writer hiroshi hiyama of AFP
actually wrote:
"he arrest of MtGox boss Mark Karpeles has begun to shed light on the defunct Bitcoin exchange after hundreds of millions of dollars in virtual currency vanished from its digital vaults last year."

but it was yahoo themselves that made the title "bitcoin CEO".

the funny thing is that AFP, is a news 'blog' which both MSN Money, yahoo US have wrongly titled..

im thinking its best to avoid msn/yahoo news