Harry Z. was the one who lured me into public service. When he first approached me, I told him working for the government wasn’t for me. He replied, “That’s why we chose you. You’re going to be working with the governor [of Maryland], William Donald Schaefer. He hates government workers too.”

Who could resist a pitch like that? I accepted.

Harry was my first true mentor. My first week on the job, he told me to consider it my sacred obligation to help the press understand the benefits of the governor’s actions and accomplishments.

“You won’t get any credit for when the press gives the governor positive press,” he said. “But you’ll get the blame for any negative coverage.”

Lucky for me, the press really liked Schaefer. It actually treated him the way our current president in his wildest dreams thinks he should be treated.

But when the coverage wasn’t to his liking? Oh boy, he’d let me know. (The governor had a well-deserved reputation for flying off the handle.)

I’m reminded of my past run-ins with the Fourth Estate because I find myself just as frustrated with the press nowadays as the governor was at times.

What irks me so?

The folks at Fortune. Here’s what they said in a recent article…

We here at Fortune have cast a curious but frequently skeptical eye on ICOs, which from the get-go were ripe for scams. It turns out that skepticism was well warranted.

It’s been a long time since I’ve come across something as smug as this.

Which would be okay if Fortune had a clue.

I’ve mentioned many times that early-stage investors “often don’t even know what they don’t know.” Well, it seems like Fortune shares the same problem.

Instead of its self-congratulatory pat on the back, I’d give it a kick in the pants. Here’s why…

902 ICOs Tracked

Fortune’s article reported on the results of a study that Bitcoin.com did on last year’s ICOs.

Of the 902 ICOs identified, 531 failed or are failing, including 142 that couldn’t even raise their minimum targets at the funding stage.

That’s a 59% failure rate. Some $233 million went into failed projects – “a lot of wasted money,” Fortune says.