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> Again, it depends on who is paying the journalist.
> These days, it's more common that the high-profile
> tech journalists are contracted *by the product
> vendor* to write a review of the product or tutorial
> for it. I worked for a company that capitalized on
> this.
More common? It happens, but it's not "more common."
Also, while some journalists have a special relation with a vendor, that is not
the same as saying that they are bought and paid for. Vendors undertake these
special relations with journalists because they are concerned about having
accurate and in-depth reviews of their products, and it is easier to train one
or two journalists than everyone one that comes along. Journalists are
cultivated, but, generally speaking, receive no pay from the vendor. The reward
that journalists get from the special relation is access to product experts and
early news about products. In many respects, these special relations are just
formalizations of the sort of interaction that goes on between vendors and
journalists all the time.
Naturally, the vendors hope for more favorable reviews, but usually the most
they can hope for is to blunt the criticism. For one thing, these special
relations are usually entered into through the editor of a particular magazine,
and the reason for anything too obviously biased in favor of the vendor would
be obvious.
All this notwithstanding, many journalists - including me - are extremely
uneasy about these special relations, and do not enter into them. Moreover, let
me stress that the ones who are the most uneasy about them are usually the high-
profile journalists. Journalists' reputations are as important as the accuracy
and timeliness of their work, and, the more high profile that journalists are,
the less likely they are to risk the reputation that got them where they are.
Besides, they don't need to. Vendors will endure high-profile journalists
because they know that the high-profile journalists can guarantee them the
publicity they want.
I'm not saying that corruption in journalism never happens. If anything, it
hapens more often in computer journalism than in mainstream journalism, because
most computer journalists aren't formally trained and haven't been exposed to
the usual ethics. However, things are far more complicated than naive cynicism
would suggest.
--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604-421.7177
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