Ray Dalio says journalism makes it so that we have no more heroes. It's funny to see that picture of him at burning man after reading his account. He wants to be a hero, deep down, whether he admits it or not (we all do). A flip side to what you point out is that because of social media now "heroes" also have to listen to people that might not share their worship the same way some newspapers often have. Carnegie and Rockefeller would have been covered differently in these times. I'm not disagreeing with you, and I do think the death of newspapers is not just because of journalists destroying their own credibility.
I agree with you that it seems he’s most bummed about not being a hero in the article. At this point, with every little position paper he publishes, and receives massive (and I think mostly undeserved) attention for, its not hard to see why he’d be bothered by the tarnishing of his image. At the same time, I have met one or two journalists, who are by far the exception, where nearly in the instant of meeting them, I know this person is nothing short of a total asshole. The wsj with its hyper-stylized “hedcut” illustrations is kind of the last place you’d expect to see such people, esp. if you’re the “good” banker... but let’s just take this with a dose of perspective, it’s not like they said he eats puppies for breakfast.
