Regarding the "huge following"... Yes, lots of people read it, send links to friends, etc. But, most of the time those links are sent for comedy or shock value, not because people think it's serious news. To use an analogy, zerohedge is like the 4chan of the finance world.
If there is shock value, it is because ZH focuses on facts (yes, they are usually well documented facts), which the so called mainstream media chooses to ignore, because the narrative does not suit their corporate owners.
Most of ZH's reporting is backed by numbers coming from other sources. They also report rumors ahead of everyone else, which seem implausible, but later turn out to be facts and reported by other outlets.
Yes, they have topic selection bias, but so does everyone else.
Seriously, they do. They spin them in weird ways, though - I remember in 2007 (or early 2008), they had an article about "the bin laden trade" - someone bet $30M or so on a very improbably collapse -- Or so the article inferred based on highly irregular "put" purchase -- losing $30M if that didn't happen, or winning billions if it did.
The data was, in fact, factual. However, they failed to account for alternative explanations, e.g. that someone (probably a pension fund or a hedge fund) was moving a lot of money into the market, and was buying insurance -- a much more likely explanation for the same data.
They do stick to facts. It's their analysis that you should reserve your skepticism to.
1. The government releases a report with an important indicator looking good
2. Mainstream Media cheers, telling us how good we have it
3. ZH looks at the report and notices that:
- the number was "seasonally adjusted" once, then again
- the number will be revised down, a month later usually on a late Friday at happy hour
- pesky details: employment growth is in part-time, minimum-wage jobs
ZH often reports facts from official government reports/documents - they are typically buried on page 99 out of 100 (for a reason).
Some people may choose to call the above rumors or "sensationalism" - feel free to ignore ZH, it is a free country.
Fyi: john Crudele reports on employment at the nypost ; he gets inside info from census (which he blasts)
Years ago he reported on plunge protection team(ppt- market manipulation) that i was skeptical about. I no longer am.
