> mentions Barack Obama in a survey of billionaires (he isn't)

This is hilarious in the context of an article about falling literacy.

They surveyed billionaires about “elite achievers.” Obama wasn’t surveyed, because as you point out, he isn’t a billionaire. Billionaires were surveyed about him.

Don't be snarky when you might be wrong in no less than 2 ways:

1. When they say

    A JPMorgan survey of more than 100 billionaires, reading ranked as the top habit elite achievers had in common

They are not asking billionaires about other people ("elite achievers") they are asking the billionaires about themselves, and the writer is using another term to avoid repearing "billionaires".

2. The actual report, which I had tracked down prior to reading the message above, is here, and you can use your own literacy skills to confirm that my point (1) above is the correct understanding:

https://assets.jpmprivatebank.com/content/dam/jpm-pb-aem/glo...

> We explored with each principal how they spend their time, what captures their interests and how they view the world across several key areas. While each principal’s experiences are unique, common priorities emerged.

> you can use your own literacy skills to confirm that my point (1) above is the correct understanding

It’s not. I know the 23 Wall guys. They’re constantly surveying their clients for obvious reasons about everything they’ll answer.

In this case, they’re surveying the family offices of billionaires. About, among other things, what makes them special. And what makes other non-billionaire special people special.

The original language correctly conveys this.

The only place where "reading" is mentioned in the entire report is on page 71.

In response to:

    1. What hobbies or interests are you most passionate about? (ranked)

and

    2. "Top seven habits attributing to success (ranked)".
    Most of the principals approach their daily routines with intention, making purposeful choices with their time. 

So at this point we have two hypotheses: the first is that there is a PDF report which states something rather clearly, and then Fortune Magazine wrote a puff piece around it which was picked up by Yahoo News, and then copypasted by this other writer in the OP with some filler added for good measure, and you're reading too much into it.

The second is that the Fortune Magazine guy "knows these 23 Wall guys", and the Yahoo News guy knows these guys, and the OP writer knows these guys, and you know these guys, and all you guys know that even though Barack Obama was never mentioned once in that report, it is absolutely obvious that we the readers should read between the lines that the questions asked are not the ones written in the report and the replies they got are not the ones written the report either, and OP writer just gets it.

I am afraid that my literacy is mostly limited here to the things that are written, since I do not know these guys.

I’m not saying the Fortune article might not be puffery. Just that a straight reading of that sentence is clear and plausible and that complaining about it not making sense buries a good argument you have about how this article was written and sourced.