The tech press must be all hopped up over the first few episodes of The Newsroom. Defenders of truth and protectors of the masses and all that.
Because they’re out opining on this and that with more than the usual amount of condescension and self righteousness this week.
Marissa Mayer is a “tyrant” with a penchant for humiliating colleagues, says Business Insider.
“Spot on” says another journalist who’s totally miffed she didn’t scoop the original story, and taking heat from readers in her own comment section.
And then doing it again when she was unable to scoop the pregnancy story, either (and commenters calling her on it).
There’s two of the towering laws of journalism in all their glory. Balance, meaning let’s find people who’ll say something negative about someone to balance things out (and winners always have haters). And Objectivity, meaning a pissed off journalist can rant at will because of course they’re not biased. Even if they are.
And then I read another article about how Kevin Rose is essentially a spoiled quitter, and how that doomed his startups and frustrated those around him.
“Just read a negative article criticizing me as an entrepreneur from someone that has never started a company,” responded Rose.
And Rose is quite right. Because not only was this story another example of cruising the losers for a juicy sound bite, but it was also written by someone who’s never been in the trenches at a startup. Who has no idea what he’s talking about.
Every once in a while I pull out the Man In The Arena quote because it reminds us of what’s really going on.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
People are out there trying to create things out of absolutely nothing. Which is hard. And messy.
And the press, needed desperately to defend the people, drum up all this bullshit based on some anonymous source who’s had their feelings hurt along the way, or had to work too hard, or whatever.
Too often the press is just a big pack of deadweight loss insecure scavengers running around yelling “look at me!”
People can’t help but read this stuff because it’s so scandalous. But what really bugs me is that so many of these journalists act this way while telling themselves, desperately, that they’re doing good. Important things. Fourth estate stuff.
You want an angle on a story? I can find someone to give me that angle if I want to. But what’s far more interesting is the truth.
Omelettes are being made, people. Stop focusing on the broken eggs.
Because if you find yourself having a hissy fit because someone else got to break a story about someone being pregnant, and then tainting your stories based on that fit, you should really be put in a time out.
Update: I just announced on TechCrunch that I’ll be interviewing Marissa on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in a few weeks. I can guarantee that we’ll be talking about meatier subjects than her pregnancy PR choices and how many people in her past thought she was mean to them.
Uncrunched 