What the "Black screen of death" story says about tech journalism

Tech journalism has always seemed more like sports journalism than hard news. The people doing the reporting tend to be enthusiasts for the companies (teams) they're reporting on, repeat press releases almost verbatim (play-by-play, injury reports), and often end up being less than objective when it comes to certain companies (home town sportscasters).

Isn't all for-profit news suspect? Free market advocates would argue that, over time, people will realize that certain news agencies aren't accurate and would then pay (either with their wallets or their eyeballs) for the more reliable news sources. The unreliable sources would go out of business, leaving us with only reliable, fact-checked news.<p>Of course, the problem with this is that people's metric for "good" news isn't what's accurate - it's what's most entertaining. Or, in the case of Fox, whatever reinforces their existing world view. Market forces don't create reliable news - they create sensational reporting.<p>This is unfortunate because a reliable free press is critical for democracies to function. Perhaps for-profit news is as fundamentally flawed as for-profit healthcare.

Excellent article worth reading. It will make you rethink how superior bloggers are to mainstream media, and whether mainstream media deserves to die or not.<p>Personally, I still believe that investigative journalism has a lot of value, but no way to charge top dollars for that value.

Both PC World and ComputerWorld (especially ComputerWorld) are the tabloids of the industry. They just have a <i>lot</i> of money to spend on shoddy journalism.