
Towards Better Technology Journalism - mqt
http://al3x.net/2009/03/03/towards-better-technology-journalism.html
======
tonystubblebine
It's easy to poke holes in any form of journalism: it's performed by human
beings who are fallible, with insufficient time or budget, about subjects
which the journalist is at best only moderately versed, and helped out by
sources with strong agendas.

For that reason, I'd much rather look at whether or not new forms of
journalism are improvements and how the flaws fit into those improvements.

Take TechCrunch, which is a massive improvement on tech journalism for the
simple reason that it gives us so much new content, but is also an easy target
because they aren't afraid to post something before they have all the facts.

That rubs people the wrong way because traditional journalism is supposed to
fact check or at least be based on concrete sources (although the sources
don't have to be factual). That standard isn't going to work with blogs
because they're putting out ten stories a day, where as NYT journalist might
put three full days into a story.

So you see blogs like TechCrunch post stories that don't have all the facts
lined up. Looking at an individual post makes it look like irresponsible
rumor. But they don't stop with the one post. Putting out something
inflammatory gets people responding and gets sources coming to them. Then they
can follow up with more posts. In the sum, the posts make up a story that's
closer to the truth.

It's sort of exploratory journalism and it seems to work well in other areas
to, like political blogs. You see a ton of accusations on those, and some of
them morph into full blown series.

I don't love the stories that are just rumor, but I think it's a big
improvement overall because important stories are getting covered.

~~~
wmf
_That standard isn't going to work with blogs because they're putting out ten
stories a day, where as NYT journalist might put three full days into a
story._

Many "blogs" have multiple writers, and there's no rule that you have to post
ten stories a day (or is there?). I don't think a more contemplative style is
incompatible with the Web.

~~~
tonystubblebine
I think there's pressure, which amounts to a rule. Multiple postings have a
high correlation with traffic growth. Short posts fit the format. And even if
you were to write a longer post, you still wouldn't have the system that a NYT
journalist has

