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 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.