Tech Journalists: How Much Street Cred Do You Need?
by
on June 07, 2008,
When I first got out of college and had to get a real job, I met a lot of resistance when it came to technical writing jobs, which was what I originally intended to do. From software development companies to engineering companies, they all said the same thing: the writing degree was fine, but I wasn't a programmer/engineer, and therefore, "couldn't understand." Based on a lot of the documentation I've seen in user manuals and other documentation since then, I'd still argue the same point: programmers and engineers often need a non-technical person to translate their ideas into plain language for average people to understand. However, tired of arguing, I decided if I couldn't beat them, I'd join them, and started doing first system administration, then development.
When I returned to writing, I had the street cred, but no longer the writing experience, and I had to readjust. I've sometimes been criticized for being "too techie" but I try to keep my writing balanced. I can't claim to have developed enterprise systems in my day (I was doing corporate intranets before the days of Sharepoint and wikis), but I have a fair understanding of how all these tubes work and if I don't know something, I know how to figure it out.
Obviously, I have a different perspective when it comes to Web 2.0 issues, especially when it comes to those of the technical variety. I tend to read a lot of things written by developers and recovering developers (like me), but that's a personal interest bias. I've certainly never discounted a blogger for never having written a line of code, but I've seen a lot of criticism when that's the case.
I'm left with the question of how much street cred a tech blogger or tech journalist really needs to have. While I've met a journalist or two who was so out of their element that they needed a new address, for the most part, I believe that journalists can immerse themselves so deeply in an area that they establish credibility. When Mike Arrington recently posted a series of questions to the folks over at Twitter, commenters such as Sandy, Commenter 14, called Arrington out for even attempting to ask questions, since he doesn't personally have experience in architecting a scalable application. If the qualifier for asking questions about anything means you have to have first done it yourself, I'm guessing that the White House press corps can be seriously reduced, so is that really the issue? I never got the feeling that Arrington was telling them what to do, only asking questions that anyone might want answers to. That's the journalist's job.
On the other hand, we have Rafe Needleman's question about Twitter, which Triston wrote about early this morning. Unless I'm missing something in the article, it was one of the most pointless solutions to the Twitter issues that I've ever seen. Anyone from a CS 101 student to a seasoned CTO could tell you that if you have a parallel development process and switch over to the new code that should (hopefully) work. There isn't any need to take it down, and if a spotty service loses users, one that is completely missing would be even worse.
So which is it? Do you need to have a development background to be able to ask these questions and discuss solutions? Or do years writing about the business count as enough credibility?
No sooner do I post this than I see that Adnan Wasim had an answer before I even asked it.
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Svetlana Gladkova
John Phelps
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
I’m going to have to say anyone with a desire to be accurate and fair about the subject matter should be able to write about a topic, as long as the proper research is done. That doesn’t mean I won’t come out of my blogapathy to beat up (in a literary sense) on tech zine writers who have little desire to use a Tablet PC’s unique features, but who will happily go bashing the devices for a paycheck. People who publish misleading drivel about tech and don’t care should…well, I have no words for what should be done with them.
That’s the standard theory, and yet I’m regularly seeing folks called on the carpet in online comments for that lack of street cred. I also see a reluctance on the part of a lot of people to issue retractions or corrections; I readily admit when I goof, and try to update accordingly. Everyone makes mistakes based on information they had at the time, and with the pace of tech news, it’s easy to do.
As for the bashing of devices, that I’m not sure of, because it depends on the audience. Not all tech zines are read by exclusively geeks, for instance. If the unique features aren’t something that would make up for a product’s deficiencies for the majority of purchasers, isn’t that a fair assessment in your example?
You don’t need any background to ask questions, otherwise we’d never solve certain problems and miss out on all sorts of valuable thoughts. The people responding to the question(s) hold the right to judge, but there’s no qualifications to open your mouth. I think Arrington asked questions that a lot of people want to know the answers to, which makes TechCrunch a good read from that standpoint. He is in a position where answers might more easily follow his questions, whereas someone without a blog who understands Twitter and worked in development for the past 15 years would ask the same questions and be unable to.
Julian, background or knowledge? I think there are a lot of stupid questions that get asked simply because some don’t take the time to learn anything about what they are asking questions about.
The tech zine reviewers I’m talking about definitely do not cater to just geeks, which is fine, because Tablet PCs aren’t just for geeks. I’m talking about when people review a Tablet PC and complain that it won’t run Autocad at lightning speeds or the latest 3D graphics-intensive game. These same folks will not even talk about the accuracy of the handwriting (or speech) recognition or what kind of experience they had penning notes in Journal. It becomes obvious that they are looking at the device as just another laptop and judging it lacking in that category. It is great when they actually look at the pros/cons and consider them based on what the device is intended to do, but that hasn’t always happened. It’s like someone looking at a motorcycle and saying it’s wrong for everyone because it has no cargo space!