It ticks me off...

...when the FT does this:

Call to end BoJ's 'quantitative easing'
Financial Times

By David Ibison and David Pilling in Tokyo. Published: February 9 2006 18:54--

Nobuo Kuroyanagi, president of MUFG, the world's largest bank, yesterday urged the Bank of Japan to end its five-year ultra loose monetary policy as soon as possible and start raising interest rates.

The comments by Japan's most powerful banker are the latest sign of growing impatience among members of the BoJ's policy board, influential business people and politicians for an end to the central bank's policy of "quantitative easing".

I understand the imperative to put the "new" in "news"--but FT pushes the envelope with its aggressive packaging of its interviews. When you put an individual in a room, ask him leading questions, then frame his comments as elements of a non-existent event, you are not reporting the news, you are manufacturing it.

Since no member of the BOJ was present at the time of the interview, Kuroyanagi-san was not "urging" anyone to do anything. Since he was not delivering a speech, he is not "calling" for anything. His responses to questions put directly to him are not "a sign" of anything--they are his responses, nothing more.

FT compounds the misdeed in its Asian print edition by plastering a huge photograph of Fukui Toshihiko next to the article and slapping a "Banker calls on BoJ to raise rates" headline on top--making it seem that the "banker" in question is Fukui.

Bad FT! Bad! Bad!