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> “But tech journalism is overwhelmingly negative!” I hear > a self-described empiricist whining somewhere on Twitter. > No it is not, my friends. You just

> “But tech journalism is overwhelmingly negative!” I hear > a self-described empiricist whining somewhere on Twitter. > No it is not, my friends. You just don’t notice it when > it isn’t. This is a cognitive bias: your brain is wired > to perceive threats in a way that it does not perceive > neutral or positive information. This is a self-serving assertion by a deeply complicit person presented entirely without evidence, and in ignorance of existing evidence in plain view. The entire world of mainstream tech journalism is founded on the business model of converting hate clicks into ad revenue. The more lurid and distorted a worldview they depict, the more their readers salivate to see their biases vindicated. It is best to ignore journalism completely, but if you can't avoid being the subject of a hit-and-run, you should at least treat them with utmost suspicion and skepticism and do exactly what SA has done.

santoshalper 6y ago
Man, you are living in a total fantasy. The vast majority of media coverage of technology is fawning and optimistic. Your reasoning is being clouded by emotions and selection bias. Everyone is power gets bad press sometimes. Best to handle it with grace, not like this.
- tehwebguy 6y ago
  Right! Just from casually scrolling through TechCrunch periodically I’d say that 95 out of 100 stories are positive or positive leaning neutral. Normally the consensus here would be that they are all puff pieces or “submarine” articles.
jdlshore 6y ago
I would have like to see more reasoning and less emotional appeal in your argument. I’m deeply skeptical of this commonly-stated theory that people do something because it generates clicks/sells books/whatever. Money is not the only motivator, it’s not a durable motivator, and even if it’s motivating to the business owners of the NYT, the reporter is not getting paid per click. (Or maybe they are! I’d be very surprised. Prove me wrong.) Do we have a systemic problem regarding what sort of headlines attract attention? I believe so, yes. Does that mean that everything—-or even just the things we dislike—-produced on a for-profit site is inherently biased? I doubt it. Such a position strikes me as profoundly naïve; in fact, it’s the same sort of naïvety that this article is talking about.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  the reporter is not getting paid per click. (Or maybe they are! I’d be very surprised. Prove me wrong.) At Bloomberg it’s no secret that their journalists are paid bonuses when their stories “move markets”.
  - jdlshore 6y ago
    This article was in the NYT.
chillacy 6y ago
> It is best to ignore journalism completely Quality journalism still exists and is invaluable, but is done as long form articles in select publications by people established enough to do it. A snippet of conversation from the All In podcast: > Jason C.: Having been a journalist...if you look at trust among republicans.. all time low in the press. And just all americans don't trust the press right now, they think there are hidden agendas... > What happened was, the internet caused the revenue streams of the press to get violently compressed or eliminated. You had craigslist take the classified business google and facebook took the ad business in subscriptions netflix spotify et cetera... so you have all that revenue gone. > They didn't have the resources to do fact checking and then ... because of blogging which i was involved in required that people file two three four times a day just to keep up... and so when you're filing even just twice a day there is no time to get quotes from the subjects. So we have all as people who are subjects had quotes attributed to us that were like: "where did you pull that quote from?" like oh "three years ago you said this" or whatever. > And you don't even know you're going to be in the story. Like the hit piece they did on you, Chamath. Some sports writer [from] sf gate did some hit piece on Chamath. Did they ever call you did they ever say "would you like to respond?". That's how it used to work... when you get a degree in journalism. > David Sacks: You said something really really important it's the craziest thing where these guys will not even call you and say "here's what we're running" or "here's what we're going to say do you want to work through this with us? Do you want to tell us are there any inaccuracies? We're really seeking the truth." Nobody's really seeking the truth they're seeking clicks ... and so here's what happens: your salary is now determined by your number of followers on twitter.

santoshalper 6y ago

Man, you are living in a total fantasy. The vast majority of media coverage of technology is fawning and optimistic. Your reasoning is being clouded by emotions and selection bias. Everyone is power gets bad press sometimes. Best to handle it with grace, not like this.

tehwebguy 6y ago
Right! Just from casually scrolling through TechCrunch periodically I’d say that 95 out of 100 stories are positive or positive leaning neutral. Normally the consensus here would be that they are all puff pieces or “submarine” articles.

jdlshore 6y ago

I would have like to see more reasoning and less emotional appeal in your argument. I’m deeply skeptical of this commonly-stated theory that people do something because it generates clicks/sells books/whatever. Money is not the only motivator, it’s not a durable motivator, and even if it’s motivating to the business owners of the NYT, the reporter is not getting paid per click. (Or maybe they are! I’d be very surprised. Prove me wrong.) Do we have a systemic problem regarding what sort of headlines attract attention? I believe so, yes. Does that mean that everything—-or even just the things we dislike—-produced on a for-profit site is inherently biased? I doubt it. Such a position strikes me as profoundly naïve; in fact, it’s the same sort of naïvety that this article is talking about.

goatinaboat 6y ago
the reporter is not getting paid per click. (Or maybe they are! I’d be very surprised. Prove me wrong.) At Bloomberg it’s no secret that their journalists are paid bonuses when their stories “move markets”.
- jdlshore 6y ago
  This article was in the NYT.

chillacy 6y ago

> It is best to ignore journalism completely Quality journalism still exists and is invaluable, but is done as long form articles in select publications by people established enough to do it. A snippet of conversation from the All In podcast: > Jason C.: Having been a journalist...if you look at trust among republicans.. all time low in the press. And just all americans don't trust the press right now, they think there are hidden agendas... > What happened was, the internet caused the revenue streams of the press to get violently compressed or eliminated. You had craigslist take the classified business google and facebook took the ad business in subscriptions netflix spotify et cetera... so you have all that revenue gone. > They didn't have the resources to do fact checking and then ... because of blogging which i was involved in required that people file two three four times a day just to keep up... and so when you're filing even just twice a day there is no time to get quotes from the subjects. So we have all as people who are subjects had quotes attributed to us that were like: "where did you pull that quote from?" like oh "three years ago you said this" or whatever. > And you don't even know you're going to be in the story. Like the hit piece they did on you, Chamath. Some sports writer [from] sf gate did some hit piece on Chamath. Did they ever call you did they ever say "would you like to respond?". That's how it used to work... when you get a degree in journalism. > David Sacks: You said something really really important it's the craziest thing where these guys will not even call you and say "here's what we're running" or "here's what we're going to say do you want to work through this with us? Do you want to tell us are there any inaccuracies? We're really seeking the truth." Nobody's really seeking the truth they're seeking clicks ... and so here's what happens: your salary is now determined by your number of followers on twitter.