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The Media and The Technology Sector
By Ben Silverman
Recently, I took part in a panel discussion sponsored by
The New York Software Industry Association and entitled,
"The Media & The Message - What's Newsworthy in Technology
Journalism Today." In an effort to be woefully over
prepared, I penned a speech for the occasion. Reading the
speech now, I think it offers some insight not only into
this subject, but into how many people in the media think
about the subjects they cover:
[Massive applause, wait, thank the crowd, wink at nearest
woman, clear throat, begin...]
Before I start, I want to warn you that my remarks are
coming from the point of view of a business reporter, not a
tech reporter. While I cover technology companies, I rarely
write about the actual technology. As I will explain, I
think this is an issue that needs to be addressed when
pitching the media. I also write for a newspaper whose
technology coverage is either very personal tech focused
when it comes to features or very Wall Street focused when
it comes to business.
With that said, the other night I was thinking about how
tech companies get press and for some reason I kept coming
back to rap music. Sounds strange I bet.
Ten or fifteen years ago if you picked up a newspaper or
magazine, or turned on the television, there always seemed
to be stories about rap music and how it was changing our
culture. A lot of the stories concentrated on how the lyrics
were perceived to be obscene and how songs portrayed
everything from drug abuse to the physical abuse of women.
Over time, the stories changed tone somewhat and
concentrated on how rap music and the culture associated
with it was infiltrating mainstream American culture.
Nowadays, when a rap artist releases what would have been
considered an obscene album ten or fifteen years ago, no one
takes notice. 
This is odd considering there is still a lot
of rap music that covers questionable themes. And this,
unfortunately, is a route that the media has taken with
technology.
Think back a few years and you'll probably remember that you
couldn't open a newspaper without reading a story about some
high-flying dot-com or tech company. The coverage of these
companies bled from the business pages to the feature
sections to the front-page. And when the downturn came, the
coverage faded back in the opposite direction -- the
downfall of a tech company went from the front-page to a
small mention in the business section.
Now that the shakeout is over, coverage of tech companies
has stabilized, but it has also shrunk. In the last two
years, numerous major newspapers in America and Canada have
cut back on their tech coverage -- some eliminating entire
sections or supplements and replacing them with occasional
features or columns. This, I believe, is more of a result in
the downturn of advertising than anything actually relating
to the reader's quest for information. However, it drives
home the point that the media is still a bottom-line
business and less ad pages means less editorial space.
Like rap music before it, the media doesn't find tech as
intriguing as it did when it was new and threatening. The
launch of a new online service in 1999 certainly attracted
more attention than it does now. And the launch of a new
networking gear company in 2000 was probably worthy of some
ink whereas now, unless the company's headquarters
mysteriously explodes, it's doubtful you'll find a lot of
people writing about it in the newspaper. Why is this?
I think there are some simple and not so simple answers. I'm
going to go through some quick data points here highlighting
these answers...
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Ben Silverman is a business columnist for The New York Post
and the publisher of the soon-to-be-relaunched
DotcomScoop.com. This article is from PR Fuel, a free weekly
newsletter on public relations produced by eReleases
(http://www.ereleases.com), the leader in press release
services for small businesses. Archived articles can be
found online at: http://www.ereleases.com/pr/prfuel.html
Copyright (c) 1998-2003 eReleases(TM) (MEK Enterprises LLC)
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