WIRED are looking for a new tech journalist, and this triggered something in Dave he just has to rant about. What about skepticism in tech journalism?
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Hi just a quick blurb video because I saw something that popped up on Twitter That kind of piqued my interest here. Wired Magazine or website or whatever it is, they're both. whatever it is these days. I'm a fairly influential site they're actually hiring.
They're looking for a senior writer. They tweeted this out for their gear section I Don't read their gear section I'm not really into consumer electronics much, but anyway. cool, right? They're hiring a new here we go. Well, let's go through it.
Why it seeks our dynamic Here we go: A dynamic and talented journalist to lead our consumer products and personal technology coverage. We seek boring writers who can pen lively reviews of our key products and compose thoughtful features stories about how the technology closest to us changes our cultural landscape. So you know right there they've already got you know something in mind for the way they want to spin things anyway. Which is fine.
The ideal candidate will have experience reporting on the world's largest, most influential tech companies Apple blah blah and show familiarity of all the products, services, and platforms integral to consumer technology. Our work spans all media discipline, so you must be comfortable on camera, on mic, and on social media. so you got to do text-based stuff and video stuff as well, which is great for those looking for such a job. Fantastic opportunity.
Feature writing experience is required, and she'll be demonstrated by strong clips that show deeply source reporting, thoughtful insight into trends and skill for vibrant scenes and characters and skill for vibrant scenes and characters. I Don't and don't know what that is anyway. I'm getting to a point, trust me. Um, and they hinted it kind of here.
we should be. Strongly it showed. Deeply sourced a report in which gets into what I want to talk about here Judy's right, three stories per week for their gear section. a mix of narrative features, news reports, trend pieces, product reviews, and reader service.
Collaborate with editors for story ideas, blah blah blah shape the editorial direction, which is good. You have a saying that awesome developer maintained reporting sources within the most influential consumer company composed product reviews and Marquee products. All the iPhone crap and things like that, right video scripts and work on camera to tell these stories visually. I'm not a script a guy myself, but hey, I can understand why you need that for very concise videos on YouTube Unless you're very, very good at it, scripts can be very, but they can also come across as you know, like just staged and not natural and things like that.
Anyway, I'm getting off-topic pitch and right narrative feature stories and trend reporting blah blah blah. Print Edition: Spearhead Live Courage So you get the on-site fantastic right breath, breaking news stories for product announcements and major events work within a social team, photo team, blah blah blah. Now here's where we get down to it requirements: The candidate must exemplary writing schools and with the Clips to prove it excellent the ability to point out a technology and tell us how it's going to change our future. And this is where my brain just sort of just started to twitch a bit because like there, this has been the problem with tech journalism for I. Don't know how many years now is that? Especially with the rise of the Kickstarter and IndieGoGo and all the other crap and all the not only scams, but just bad product ideas and impractical product ideas that come along with it? and I I'm not necessarily. This is not just a commentary on Wired here, this is just a more you know in general tech journalism kind of rant Here is that they go into it. This is what they're sort of looking for. They want or you know, catching headlines.
You know, the they they want that clickbait headline of how this latest wireless phone charger is gonna change your life because you can just go shake shake shake shake shake and it charges your phone up. You know, in two seconds and like. And these things are just impractical. And I do quite a few debunking videos of these sorts of topics.
But unfortunately, there's a very big lack of tech journalism that actually also does debunking of these products or actually critically analyze it so we can go through here. Experience composing long-form narrative features, Experience writing breaking news portfolio sources within the experience of audio-visual Fundamental understanding of the technologies. Yeah, of course you know you're gonna know what you're talking about and that's it, right? Nowhere in their requirements does it talk about apart from hinting up here that you may want to as I said skills for deeply source reporting and things like that. nowhere in the requirements does it talk about actually are being critical of new product ideas, being skeptical, and you know if it sounds too good to be true, do some research and stuff like that and it doesn't talk about research skills and and critical thinking and stuff like that.
And that's really something that's lacking in the tech. journalism are space these days, it's almost non-existent It's very rare to actually come across a technical journal, be it online or print or whatever that actually critically analyzes things. I had to take popular science to task and I did a video on them when they did the water spear thing or whatever it was, you know, suck water out of the moisture out of the air and generate clean water. and they they had to back down and as a result of my video and do a retraction kind of fer actually just printing that story because they were kind of following.
You know this narrative of how all this wonderful new technology, every single announcements going to change our life? well know some of them are just impractical and they need to be called out. And I as I said I'm not necessarily blaming Wired here, but it would be nice to be able to see something like that in tech journalism these days. And I'd like to think you know if you can change, where is it, you can change the and help shape the editorial direction of Wides Journalism. So if I was applying for this job and you had done some debunking videos, I'd be highlighting those going look, no, don't maybe they I don't know, maybe that's not what they're looking for but I I would hope that they would see something like all that. This person is not just going to write positive articles about everything, but also we'll do you know, um, some investigation and stuff. think critically examine stuff, ask the questions you know and that can actually make as big a clickbait headline as all this new wireless wank charger is gonna change your life, you know? And I don't know why they're not doing more of this in tech journalism I Really don't because it can I get some way. My debunking videos are extremely popular and I don't know why there's not more of it and take journalism anyway. I Thought that was interesting I Just noted the lack of that in their job requirements here.
So anyway, hope you found that interesting. If you did, leave a comment down below, give it a thumbs up. all that sort of stuff and what do you think about tech journalism? Am I right? Is there a lack of critical thinking and skepticism in new products? Should it be a requirement of every tech journalist these days for something along those lines? I think it should be? Well, at least it would be nice to see some companies doing it. and I think the companies that do take on that will be ultimately become more popular.
so it's a good thing. Anyway, leave your comments down below. catch you next time.
The magazine died when purchased by Konde Nast. Before that they had many articles with clear direction against the mainstream, people who knew how things worked and not only consumer phones, many articles on digital crimes, DDOS attacks, etc. They were reporting on technology and not on consumer products
I actually wonder if it’s because they can’t. As in, perhaps they literally don’t have the technical knowledge. Idk
Wired wants a positive spin on new products so advertisers will advertise on Wired and buy said products. Questioning the validity of the products and critical reviews do not server their ends.
You are missing an important point. The discussed issue is a real one for journalism in general. Not just tech journalism…
In a nutshell: we don't want any smelly technician or engineer but asskisser.
American culture = must be 100% positive all of the time
good journalism challenges a person to consider the topic and think critically about it, bad journalism forces an idea down their throat
WIRED moved into politics and activism long ago, along with pseudo sociology concepts in technology.
three articles a week?? that are deeply sourced reporting and thoughtful insight into trends??
that would be no more that 1 article a week if you want integrity and well written journalism.
sounds like wired should change the ad to
wanted: click-bait writer… there corrected for you wired.
Love your work man
Wank Charger. Thanks Dave, i will make a Kickstarter out of it. This Idea is stupid enough that the most People believe in it. "A natural Way to Train your Arms and Charge up Your Phone in only 10minutes to 80%"
I may Ask the Video Team from Fontus to make me an Cinematic Video around my "Product". Then i will get 100 MILLION DOLLARS (Imagine the Scene with Dr. Evil 😉 ).
WIRED's business model from the beginning (at least since they became part of Condé-Nast in 1998) has been to present paid product announcement in editorial form, i.e. "report" on the "ground-breaking" features of new products, with the hope that early adopters reading WIRED pick it up and start spreading the word. Today almost all of the "free" web content of major commercial publishers includes paid advertisement masked as journalistic reporting.
They have no technical expectations; how is someone supposed to be skeptical when they don't understand how something works? Skepticism requires understanding, otherwise it's just idle negativity.
I used to have a subscription from Wired. The mag is nothing but ads and left thinking.
The headline should be "tech fiction writer wanted"
Tech journalism is advertisement. Nothing more, nothing less. Want to know if a product is good? Just watch a youtube video with a non-clickbait title.
Nowerdays the whole world seem to lack skeptizism . That's why hoaxer, truther and other boneheads have their big time.
Thank you so much Dave for this interesting video.
Oh Dave….
Instead of tormenting the poor Chinese workers,
Who are merely trying to do as they are asked
to try to earn a decent living, and instead of
the "evil factory owners" who are also trying
to fill ridiculous orders, mostly from the West…
Blame ourselves, because we are the ones who demand it.
I like to hear something more interesting; like how
Dick Smith got out of his business, just before idiots
took it over and ran it into bankruptcy in an impossibly
short period of time.
Now that would be interesting.
Actually, you're not quite the "expert" you think you are.
Agree a lot with this rant. It seems that the publishers have gotten so close to the manufacturers to get the scoops they don't want to upset them, also we are so used to not paying for content (ie buying magazines) that publications have to rely more on advertising so again they don't want to upset these firms that could be buying advertising space.
I watch a lot of youtube channels and get info from social media as you are more likely to get . realistic picture of a product from these places rather than the big publications.
With magazines and all depending on advertisers, all positive or glowing reviews is the answer. If they start going into negativity, there's the chance of losing ad revenue and corruption from competitors paying to smear competition and all that. If people want honest journalism, they'll have to completely fund the magazine.