
We need a new model for tech journalism - apress
https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/tech-journalism.php
======
joshvm
> To even visit the offices of tech giants—itself often a rare
> privilege—requires journalists to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Why is it weird that journalists have to sign an NDA to visit premises? Your
job is explicitly to spread information and you're visiting a commercially
sensitive area. I've worked with small companies (< 30 people) where entire
floors were off limits if you didn't sign.

It's easy for a journalist to describe something without realising its
importance within the community. There was an article recently about a tour of
a Nikon lens factory and they were forbidden to talk or describe certain
furnaces. If you weren't an expert in glass manufacture, you might let slip a
key fact like "we saw a big machine before process Y" or "the glass at this
point is red hot" (maybe everyone else has it orange-hot).

Why should _any_ corporation let you visit their premises without suitable
assurances?

~~~
eli
The NDA terms are sometimes onerous. For example, prohibiting you from talking
about unreleased products regardless of how you come to know about them, not
just from what you see on the tour. Every decent journalist would respect that
parts of a tour would be off-the-record without the need for a legally binding
document.

I've declined the opportunity to receive pre-release review devices before
because I didn't like the restrictions the NDA put on what I was allowed to
say about them.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _every decent journalist would respect that parts of a tour would be off-
> the-record without the need for a legally binding document_

Then they shouldn't have a problem agreeing to that in writing.

~~~
romwell
>Then they shouldn't have a problem agreeing to that in writing.

Um, you seem to have missed this part:

>The NDA terms are sometimes onerous. For example, prohibiting you from
talking about unreleased products regardless of how you come to know about
them, not just from what you see on the tour.

See, there's more stuff in the NDA than what common sense dictates. You can't
just agree to the parts you don't have problem with.

~~~
tedunangst
Not my area of expertise, but isn't that unenforceable?

~~~
romwell
Not mine either, but why not?

"We have shown X during the tour. Joe and Mary certify that. The article
mentions X. This is a violation of the NDA."

Even if X was common knowledge, once you sign the agreement, you're setting
yourself up for trouble if you do something you agreed not to.

~~~
tedunangst
Well, that's kinda my point. If it's common knowledge, are you in trouble?

------
nemild
I write a media literacy guide for engineers:

[https://github.com/nemild/hack-an-
engineer/blob/master/READM...](https://github.com/nemild/hack-an-
engineer/blob/master/README.md)

The key thing this post is missing, is it talks about this as _journalists
could do better_ , as if these issues are simply a moral failing. Instead, the
key issue is reader and economic incentives (like how tech journalism
monetizes through conferences — and the importance of page views and
virality).

Here's Nick Bilton talking about the things that influence tech journalists:

>“It’s a game of access, and if you don’t play it carefully, you may pay
sorely. Outlets that write negatively about gadgets often don’t get pre-
release versions of the next gadget. Writers who ask probing questions may not
get to interview the C.E.O. next time he or she is doing the rounds. If you
comply with these rules, you’re rewarded with page views and praise in the
tech blogosphere. And then there’s the fact that many of these tech outlets
rely so heavily on tech conferences. “If you look at most tech publications,
they have major conferences as their revenue,” Jason Calacanis, the blogger
and founder of Weblogs, told me. “If you hit too hard, you lose keynotes,
ticket buyers, and support in the tech space.”"

[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/05/theranos-silicon-
val...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/05/theranos-silicon-valley-media)

~~~
arcbyte
If saying things _is_ your business and people don't like what youre saying,
youre bad _at_ business and dont belong _in_ business.

------
repolfx
It's nice to see journalists actually reflecting on how to make journalism
better for once. Sometimes I wonder if engineers and doctors are the only
profession that constantly hold conferences and write blog posts about how to
become better at their jobs.

But it's kind of a weird and poorly constructed argument:

 _It’s easy to see why some readers would feel whiplashed by the current,
critical coverage of Facebook and Google, which seems to come out of nowhere._

Whiplash ... came out of nowhere ... so journalists changed their view too
fast then. Next sentence:

 _That’s our fault as journalists: We’ve been too slow to spot how things have
changed_

Wait, did journalists change their views on tech too fast or too slow? It
seems to be both at once in this paragraph.

Later he appears to lament the historical dearth of "serious tech
journalists", but he defines serious as journalists that "hold tech to
account" which in turn simply seems to mean attacking them because they're
big. I guess I'd use a definition more like "understands technology", with Jon
Stokes at Ars Technica being a good example.

We do need a new model for tech journalism and indeed all journalism - we need
journalists who are more interested in neutrally reporting accurate facts and
news rather than engaging in poorly thought out social advocacy. Given the
contents of this essay I'm not holding my breath.

~~~
CM30
> It's nice to see journalists actually reflecting on how to make journalism
> better for once. Sometimes I wonder if engineers and doctors are the only
> profession that constantly hold conferences and write blog posts about how
> to become better at their jobs.

Journalists actually do have tech conferences and events, as well as blogs
about the profession. Though the former are ridiculously expensive given their
audience, making me almost wonder how any actual journalist could afford to
attend one. It's not like in tech where someone can get a few hundred grand a
year in some jobs, it's 'would struggle with rent in a medium sized town'
level salaries.

~~~
repolfx
Journalists have _tech_ conferences? That isn't quite what I meant.

What I mean is, what's the journalism equivalent of proggit or hacker news or
arxiv - a place where people come together to debate the latest techniques for
raising the quality of journalism on a massive scale? Do they have one? In all
my years of reading I've never encountered a rigorous attempt by journalists
to define new systems for better quality journalism or debate the decline in
their trust.

------
mc32
I’d love to see a tech news mag that covered tech the way “The Microprocessor
Report” covered microprocessors.

Tech news today is more like TMZ for the tech industry and all about either
“coolness” or about “causes”.

~~~
duxup
Amen

"Phone manufacturer X should be embarrassed for putting a notch on their
phone!!!"

What does that even mean... it's a phone....

~~~
Nasrudith
It means that it is considered a sign of shoddy design. Granted it is
technically a matter of opinion of if having a screen flanking the camera or
giving its own space above or below is better but there have been complaints
about comparability being broken.

Like complaining about a release crashing as breaking the build being
unprofessional - while testing is a role internally it should compile and run
at least beforehand.

Meanwhile 'Samsung Galaxy Note 7 catches fire' is objectively bad since a
phone should never catch fire on its own unless perhaps it includes a self
destruct feature (which needless to say would be very niche to be approved for
sale).

------
fhood
I guess I agree, but covering companies like Google or Amazon or Apple or
whatever, no longer feels like "tech" journalism. It isn't niche or easily
categorized anymore. It is just journalism. Much like covering Exxon isn't
"energy" journalism. I don't feel "whiplashed" by the shift in coverage, I
just feel like people now care about these companies whereas 10 years ago they
weren't that important.

The coverage that Google currently gets feels much like the coverage that
Microsoft was receiving in the 90s and early to mid 2000s. There hasn't been a
shift really, just Microsoft was relevant earlier.

------
CM30
This article seems like it could be describing games journalism almost
perfectly, with the sole exception of the whole 'their business affects every
aspect of society' thing. In that field you've also got:

1\. Reporters acting more like cheerleaders for industry figures than
journalists

2\. Overly secretive companies with strict control structures.

3\. Journalists being stretched thin as they're forced to cover too many
stories at once in too many areas without getting the time to research them
properly.

4\. A lack of coverage regarding actual issues in the industry, or anything
resembling investigative journalism.

5\. Misunderstanding their audience in general.

But hey, I guess you could say many of the issues are really true of most
niche or entertainment focused media.

~~~
vkou
Gaming journalists understand their audience. The problem is that their bills
are paid by advertisements from AAA studios.

You've described the problems of ad-sponsored media. If you actually paid for
your news, all these problems would go away.

~~~
CM30
> If you actually paid for your news, all these problems would go away.

We all did. They were called magazines, and you paid for subscriptions. There
were gaming magazines, tech magazines, music and TV magazines, celebrity
gossip magazines, etc. Most of them had many of the same issues as modern
sites for those topics.

~~~
ghaff
That’s because the subscription basically paid for mailing you a paper copy.
Everything else was still covered by advertising.

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
Some magazines but certainly not all. The publisher I worked for most recently
had three sister titles: one entirely ad-funded, another entirely
subscription-funded (no ads at all), the third (which I edited) half and half.

------
OliverJones
News flash! Some journalists are lazy, just parroting press releases! Video at
11!

Still, the Columbia Journalism Review is right about the need to rethink how
news outlets cover "tech." Too much tech journalism fills space and time with
breathless playback of the founding myths of companies, or breathless coverage
of scandals.

The big Sili Valley companies are big enough to deserve the same kind of
journalist scrutiny as outfits like GM, Proctor&Gamble, and Cargill. Some
business journalists specialize in finance, while others specialize in
product, distribution, employment, regulatory, and the like. It certainly
makes sense for some to specialize in software and telecom, but those fields
apply to Cargill just as much as they apply to Google or the stealth startup
in the incubator.

It's common for business journalists to accept embargos on stories, holding
off publication until a certain, and near, date. This is quid pro quo for
early access. But the moment they accept long term confidential disclosure
agreements is the moment they stop being journalists. If we don't want our
trade secrets in the media, we should not show them to journalists.

------
fullshark
Journalists can get charmed just like us normals. Their main bias is they are
constantly in search of narratives and aim to frame information in that way
(cause it makes their pieces interesting). "This tech will change the world"
is an exciting narrative that a lot of journalists are more than willing to
write a piece around.

~~~
ghaff
That's true but the bigger issue with a lot of trade press is that there's
expected to produce a lot of pieces quickly, often across a rather broad range
of topics. The better journalists still do a pretty good job of it; I'm
constantly impressed with how much readable and, as far as I can tell even in
areas I know a fair bit about, accurate prose some turn out. But you're not
going to get much truly investigative journalism out of people who are on the
hook for 2 or 3 stories per day.

There are also often incentives to be provocative rather than "just the
facts." But that's another issue related to incentives.

------
Nasrudith
The article doesn't seem that good but really I think the state of journalism
in general is that it is an ungainly hybrid trying to serve two masters and
failing to serve either. As a business they face declining revenues and as a
source of information they face increased competition from non-journalistic
sources and frankly often aren't very good. Activists don't have the business
as the issue but they have their own axe to grind and everyone knows it and
reacts accordingly which ironically limits their ability to influence - people
either sign on at referral and follow until alienated or ignore them if they
aren't interested.

I suspect that they are largely mis-motivated as part of the issue - one
doesn't become a music star just by wanting to be famous yet they are focused
the most on clicks. Similar to how just having as a goal to sleep with people
isn't a very good approach to being sexually desirable. Some real soul
searching would be needed to rise to the top again - a fundamental desire to
inform people first and then financial success may follow ironically if they
don't care about it. I doubt that the existing institutions are capable of it
because they are fundamentally businesses and asking them to stop caring about
profit is about as absurd as asking a peasant to stop caring about food.

------
larrik
"The result is the big four tech giants have a head start of 25 or more years
in building their business models and laying their groundwork ahead of
receiving serious scrutiny"

Except that Google isn't quite 20, and Facebook is like 15. Amazon is _almost_
25\. Meanwhile Apple is what? 40+?

~~~
jdoliner
I'm not sure why this author thinks this is because of the way tech is covered
and not just the way business in general, and particularly tech businesses
work. Seems a very self centered view of the world.

------
thinkingkong
PR. PR drives the news cycle for tech companies. Hell. If you pop the hood and
start to dig into most stories, lots of journalists dont even _write_ them.
They’re just written by agencies who pitch and pass on pre-drafted content

------
klondike_
Tech journalism, especially in mainstream publications, has gotten notably
worse in the past few decades. A lot of times it reads more like an
advertisement than actual journalism, with journalists doing little research
of their own (See articles covering solar roadways, and other infeasible
ideas).

It might just be nostalgia goggles but I remember magazines like Popular
Mechanics and Wired going into intricate detail whenever they reviewed or
covered a product. Graphics and charts explaining how exactly things worked,
instead of just regurgitating the company's "about" page.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I'd say that _all_ journalism has gotten notably worse in the past few
decades. We may just notice it more in tech journalism because we know more
about tech.

------
grosjona
>> That’s our fault as journalists: We’ve been too slow to spot how things
have changed and to cover the sector as the corporate behemoth it is

Journalists were very happy to help Facebook while it was profitable for them
and now that Facebook has obviously turned against them, suddenly they have a
moral epiphany.

I wonder if the journalists who lined their pockets by promoting certain
startups while working for tech publications like TechCrunch, Venture Beat and
the others will also have a similar moral epiphany some day... Probably not.

------
textmode
Heres an MP3 of the Kara Swisher interview that is mentioned.

[https://content.production.cdn.art19.com/episodes/1454f1b6-4...](https://content.production.cdn.art19.com/episodes/1454f1b6-4ad7-4e3b-8342-e35a555d4bd3/25023ab20cd98b78ca1e6b1d388fd34124cdfad061ac8483aee685a990bc7a0bb14866370f071f3eea90eeaad9b41b5bc95969fe912fefbade2bc456c66a7107/RecodeDecode_180718_MarkZuckerberg_MIX01.mp3)

------
ewjordan
There _are_ dedicated reporters at a lot of outlets for each of the tech
giants, I don't understand that complaint. I've talked with several of them,
they show up at like every tech gathering they're allowed into, and many
people at those companies know their names/faces and avoid them like the
plague.

------
motohagiography
Tech has the same problem entertainment and fashion reporters always had. The
CJR appears to agree that most tech writers are hacks trading fluff jobs for
access, swag, and perks.

------
carapace
Blank page with JS disabled.

~~~
CaptSpify
I have JS disabled and it loads just fine

~~~
carapace
Are you sure? Dunno what to tell you. I see a blank page with a reddish orange
bar at the top. If I enable a few JS sources I get the content, revoke them
and it goes away.

I'll beef hooked if I'm going to read an article about what "tech journalism"
needs from a site that already shit the bed IMO.

------
cosinetau
What is game journalism doing right [if anything] that tech journalism can
borrow or learn from?

~~~
gipp
It's very strange to me how many people on the Internet constantly want to
talk about "games journalism", which seems like an extremely niche area. So
many very strong opinions about something that... really doesn't matter? I
feel like there's more games journalism journalism than just games journalism,
and I cannot even begin to approach an explanation of why that is.

~~~
WalterGR
_" games journalism", which seems like an extremely niche area._

Gaming is huge. Absolutely huge. Why do you think that games journalism is not
only niche, but extremely niche?

 _I feel like there 's more games journalism journalism than just games
journalism,_

?

~~~
kentm
> Why do you think that games journalism is not only niche, but extremely
> niche?

I can't really speak to whether or not its niche in an objective sense (i.e.
the readership of games journalism), but it may seem that way because the
stakes are so low. Games are essentially just entertainment and the
availability of accurate information about them is not nearly as important as
information about the functioning of government or the actions of large
companies that can impact your life.

