Real Journalists Get the Murdoch
May 2, 2012
“Why You Can’t Trust Tech Press to Teach You about the Tech Industry” paints an old bandwagon and rolls it down the Silicon Highway. I recall the glory days of ancient Rome’s acta. Then there were the broadsheet dust ups in London in the 17th century. But the pinnacle of “real” journalism was reached with the fine work of Messrs. Pulitzer and Hearst in the era of yellow journalism. I thought that the News Corp.’s approach to research had more beef, but it seems that instead of “real” journalism, there was only the murky “governance” issue. A great chance to make “real” journalistic progress was muffed.
The “Can’t Trust” write up makes a stab at slick writing. I noticed the elegant “know your sh*t.” I also enjoyed the comment:
This isn’t a case where a few lesser outlets omitted a minor point about a headline. It’s a case where a story that was interesting enough to earn a full Techmeme pile-on was lacking in coverage that would be necessary for understanding the story at even the most superficial level. As you might expect, a few of the larger outlets have big enough audiences that their commenter communities were able to add the missing salient facts to the story, but on both The Verge and Business Insider, the comments which mentioned Friend Connect were buried in their respective threads and, as of a month later, not highlighted in the original posts.
Now, technology is a slippery fish. Technology journalism is more like a fisher of men tossing grenades into the roiling waters of marketing. My questions:
- How do those using online determine the provenance of a story, advertorial, opinion, or social media comment?
- Will analytic systems provide a series of monitoring devices which will flag content which is a form of disinformation?
- Do those who struggle to make a living in the thin gruel of the digital swamp have the expertise to differentiate among such notions as “search,” “IaaS,” the “cloud”, or “social media”?
- Does anyone care?
Frankly, I enjoy the new world of Murdochism. “Real” journalists take heart. A fresh start is at hand: explaining social media.
Stephen E Arnold, May 2, 2012
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