4 ms·

(My wife was in the DC press corp for years covering Congress, serving in the White House Press Pool, and the Pentagon at various times.) Unfortunately, the va

(My wife was in the DC press corp for years covering Congress, serving in the White House Press Pool, and the Pentagon at various times.) Unfortunately, the vast majority of the press has little understanding and even less background in the topics they cover. The article they write on Wednesday, they may have learned about on Tuesday, after being assigned it on Monday. This is why so many groups can get away with handling them something that is just slightly less promotional than a press release and get away with it. Combine that with tight publication schedules and the sheer amount that they have to publish (though mostly bloggers, less general journalists) and it's a recipe for disaster. While my wife was still active in that space, I briefed her colleagues on technical matters regularly. I felt like I was helping educate at scale but at some point I realized that too many just didn't care. They wanted the "10 second sound bite" and move onto the next topic. Note: If the reporter has a strong background in a subject - technology, medicine, etc - they become the exception rather than the rule as most of them can make more money as consultants than beat reporters. They are often subtly promoting their own books and lectures too.

MichaelCrawford 11y ago
More than once, my employer issued a press release for a product I wrote then a reporter published it verbatim with their own byline. There is a market opportunity for someone who can find two journalists doing thatnat the same time with the same press release.
Sven7 11y ago
There is a Matt Taibbi talk somewhere, where he says he was on the presidential campaign trail with more or less the top reporters in the country when Bear Sterns collapsed, and his shock at realizing that none of them knew what that meant or what even the story was about.

MichaelCrawford 11y ago

More than once, my employer issued a press release for a product I wrote then a reporter published it verbatim with their own byline. There is a market opportunity for someone who can find two journalists doing thatnat the same time with the same press release.

Sven7 11y ago

There is a Matt Taibbi talk somewhere, where he says he was on the presidential campaign trail with more or less the top reporters in the country when Bear Sterns collapsed, and his shock at realizing that none of them knew what that meant or what even the story was about.