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Or, suggest that this is a low quality article, and if journalistic enterprises want to report on subject matter, they should have their articles approved by pe

by ep103 8y ago

Or, suggest that this is a low quality article, and if journalistic enterprises want to report on subject matter, they should have their articles approved by people knowledgeable in that subject matter.

jkaplowitz 8y ago
Unfortunately that's true for most journalism. It's just that we techies are not usually subject-matter experts in the many other areas where they make mistakes. Consistently high-quality in-depth reporting is the exception and is not a threshold most media will accept as a publication bottleneck.
- georgeecollins 8y ago
  My Dad used to say: "The Economist "(magazine)"sounds authoritative until you read an article about something you are an expert in."
  - xapata 8y ago
    True for all journalism.
  - dx034 8y ago
    I still find they generally do a good job breaking down topics in a way most people can understand it. Often, being accurate also means being unnecessarily complex. If your goal is to explain research in an easy way, simplifying it will often introduce inaccuracy. That doesn't mean the writer isn't aware of it, they just try to get as many people as possible to read to the end (as this gets tracked online).
killjoywashere 8y ago
Or, fund education and set higher standards in education so you can rationally expect typical journalists are capable of diving into technical issues.
mankash666 8y ago
You're assuming the target audience to only comprise of subject matter experts. This article is perfectly ok for 90% of the tax paying population that works outside tech
- dx034 8y ago
  And maybe even better for those 90%. Introducing more technical terms (e.g. specifying the Assembler used) makes it less readable for anyone without the domain knowledge. Often, when trying to explain something to the broad public, making it inaccurate is a necessity.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    I wasn't suggesting the article needed to be more technical in nature or lacked details but rather pointing out that the improper use of a grammatic article demonstrated a lack of editorial oversight by a technical resource. In other words, the authors are speaking with authority about something they demonstrated ignorance of by improper use of an article and they went out of their way to use language that would lead a non-technical reader to conclude the failure that occurred was a result of 60 year old code when in reality it was due to 18 month old hardware.

by ep103 8y ago

jkaplowitz 8y ago

Unfortunately that's true for most journalism. It's just that we techies are not usually subject-matter experts in the many other areas where they make mistakes. Consistently high-quality in-depth reporting is the exception and is not a threshold most media will accept as a publication bottleneck.

georgeecollins 8y ago
My Dad used to say: "The Economist "(magazine)"sounds authoritative until you read an article about something you are an expert in."
- xapata 8y ago
  True for all journalism.
- dx034 8y ago
  I still find they generally do a good job breaking down topics in a way most people can understand it. Often, being accurate also means being unnecessarily complex. If your goal is to explain research in an easy way, simplifying it will often introduce inaccuracy. That doesn't mean the writer isn't aware of it, they just try to get as many people as possible to read to the end (as this gets tracked online).

killjoywashere 8y ago

Or, fund education and set higher standards in education so you can rationally expect typical journalists are capable of diving into technical issues.

mankash666 8y ago

You're assuming the target audience to only comprise of subject matter experts. This article is perfectly ok for 90% of the tax paying population that works outside tech

dx034 8y ago
And maybe even better for those 90%. Introducing more technical terms (e.g. specifying the Assembler used) makes it less readable for anyone without the domain knowledge. Often, when trying to explain something to the broad public, making it inaccurate is a necessity.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  I wasn't suggesting the article needed to be more technical in nature or lacked details but rather pointing out that the improper use of a grammatic article demonstrated a lack of editorial oversight by a technical resource. In other words, the authors are speaking with authority about something they demonstrated ignorance of by improper use of an article and they went out of their way to use language that would lead a non-technical reader to conclude the failure that occurred was a result of 60 year old code when in reality it was due to 18 month old hardware.