The Failure of Tech Journalism

Belzebutt writes: "This is a great article that talks about something we already knew, but haven't paid that much attention to: most tech journalists are a bunch of corporate whores. It even mentions Slashdot, although not very favorably." Eh, we'll get over it. It's a good rant, something to consider as news sites fold left and right.

WAY too simple....

[darkPHi3er]

The number one reason technology is so badly covered starts with the technologists.

1. We have a tendency to assume that all tech media people are stupid or biased, so we give them "shorthand" and "for dummies" explanations that we wouldn't give to anyone we respected.

2. We allows the marketing droids and PR flacks to develop relationships with journalists, when we should be the ones extending ourselves to the industry media.

3. We don't like to contradict our managment when our management say "XYZ" and we know its pure bullshit. So we end supporting OUR corporation's position when we know its not true.

YES, there are plenty of hacks in tech media. But, as i have had a chance to meet and speak with some of the best regarded tech journalists. In my experiences with them, having been sourced a number of times and having contributed to a couple of biggish "scoops", there are also plenty who want to get the story right. But, if the only interface they have is the marketing dept or some project manager with his stock options on the line, they ain't ever gonna hear a discouraging word.

You can't accuse journalists like Dan Gillmor, Mary Jo Foley, Scott Petersen, Walter Mossberg, Peter Coffee, Dan Coursey, Michael Vizard, Jesse Berst, et al of excessive slanting. All of these journalists and the "analysts" like Dvorak have spent many years poking holes in tech corporations "walls of silence"...

Organizations are another thing.

It seems very clear to me, IMHO, that before the purchase of ZDNet by CNET, ZDNet was pretty tough on MS, and this was despite the fact that MS was a HUGE ADVERTISER on ZDNet!

CNET, on the other hand, has always seemed to me to be "softer" on its MS coverage than just about any other tech news hub.

Interestingly, since CNET's acquisition of ZDNet, it seems as though some major ZDNet anti-MS reporters such as Mary Jo Foley have gone away, and the overall tone of ZDNet on the subject of MS has softened considerably.

CNET also does not, and never has, seemed as Linux friendly as ZDNet, and I don't get the feeling that CNET wants to do anything to piss MS off.

I'd say it's "Caveat Emptor", i look at the byline. If i know/respect the journalist, i'll read it.

If it's some bozo who can't a monitor from "The Monitor", i'll skip it.

But, if we want more accurate coverage...We are going to have to start by avoiding trolling and flaming journalists who get it wrong, and start developing relationships with the ones who we know cover us fairly and accurately.

And we are going to have to go around our employers sometimes to do that, takes guts and involvement.

without those efforts on our part, you can expect that tech media coverage will remain driven by "Advertiser is King" coverage, until we change it.

Re:Feh. VA Linux or the Evil Empire?

[tim_maroney]

Much of the moderation here appears to be done based on whether or not the moderator personally agrees with you, regardless of how intelligent or relevent your comments may be. This is a subtle evolution of the "luser who uses Windoze" quote from the NetSlaves author. It's rare that Microsoft does something right, of course, but when it does, it's nice to be able to discuss it rationally.

There is a lot of ideological moderation here, but if you stay reasonable, choose your battles carefully, and back up your points with solid facts, you can get modded up on /. without adhering to the dominant pro-Linux, pro-open-source, anti-user-experience ideology. I've done it, as an old Mac hand who thinks the open source model is fundamentally flawed, and who frequently points out problems with command line interfaces and UNIX. It took a lot of work, and I've had to be a lot more careful in expressing myself than would someone whose views were more in line with local consensus, but it's been effective.

Granted, I also get flamed out the wazoo by hordes of ESR drones, but that's only to be expected when you're taking an antinomian stance. I also sometimes get unfairly modded down, usually by the kinds of people who like to throw "overrated" around to avoid metamod, but that happens less often than you'd think.

So I can't testify from personal experience that all divergent views get modded down here. In any human group critics need to be extra careful, but in many groups, someone taking an oppositional stance like mine would be excluded altogether, rather than being at the karma cap.

Tim

The article is bang on IMO.

[Mr. Flibble]

You need to read Tom's Hardware or Sharky Extreme. Even PC Computing (best for long flights, bird cages and darts). Tom's and Sharky's does the kind of detailed, intensive reporting that most magazines avoid.

Quite true. His article makes alot of sense, now if he had only included
The Register [theregister.co.uk] he would have rounded it out nicely. I can see that some posts are trying to take to task his portrayal of Slashdot as a Linux-Centric site. Come on. We all KNOW that this site is devoted to Linux Advocacy before tech journalism. There is nothing wrong with that. The main problem seems to be the rabid "knee jerk" reactions shown by the community in general here. (You only need to look at any story do do with Microsoft, and then read the comments therein.)

The authors comments towards the PC Mag Review [pcmag.com] are bang on. ZD net has always had a positive bias toward Microsoft products just as (as the author mentions) Macaddict has favorable review of Macs. Not much of a surprise there. The reason that ZD is still around is that it is very business oriented, and it's reader base is very much entrenched in the Microsoft world.

Maybe the net public realized this bias (or, perhaps I should say "lack of news") before the author did though. Myself and my friends frequently visit tech sites that are indepentant. In fact, in the list of independant sites we regularly visit we have noticed no layoffs of staff, or any change in the way they run their websites. If we the readers ignore the biased sites (and thus ignore the advertising) the site (which cannot now make any money sitting in their Aeron chairs) then the website dies.

I have not noticed that many of the "dotcoms" are dissapearing. This is probably because I realized long ago what was a good website, and what was not. I think most of us have.

I disagree with the article

[blang]

The author brings up many points about poor and unethical journalism, and especially rants against internet and dotcom related journalism.

His whole point is that this particular sector is unethical in an unprecedented degree. If this guy was a real journalist, he would know that this goes on in all kinds of press, and is nothing new.
If he knew anything at all about journalism, he would know that the watergate expose is the exception, and not the rule.

Most industries have a few myths that are generally accepted as truths. Today Ben Stein posted an interesting article on thestreet.com, dissecting the myth about the high longterm yields of the stock market. He showed that it is a myth. However, 99% of financial reporters and analysts accept this myth as pure truth. Does that make reporters of the financial sector crooked, or cold it just be incompetence, and lack of foresight.

Every single industry has similar problems. Do you see many of the car magazines criticizing the industry, and the government for the SUV scandal?

Does body builder magazines publish critical articles on the dangers, and use of steroids?

When's the last time you saw one of the fashion magazones write that Kalvin Klein makes pretentious dozen ware, and DKNY makes ugly clothes?

When's the last time a D.C. newspaper did a deep and dirty expose on congress, senate or white house, that had anything to do with the politics? Nope, they're too busy to dig up sex stories, leaving the pols to do their business unaudited.

So I have to disagree with the author. Yes, there's a lot of crap in tech journalism, but that's not special. Crap journalism has been a readily available commodity for a long time, all over the place.

Re:US-centric view / c't magazine

[Qbertino]

You made 2 very solid points there:

#1 - CT: the reference for any computer magazine (probably even the best in the world)

#2 An overall and generally to US centric view of USAs Netizens (probably the Netizens are the least US-centric - that kinda gives me some unpleasant thoughts)