"The problem, I believe, is that the tech media has become poisoned by a mixture of ignorance and cynical optimism where the narratives are driven not by any particular interest or domain expertise, but by whatever they believe the market (or the powerful people they admire) would like it to be.

I know for a fact that the senior editorial staff handling technology at multiple major mainstream publications do not really care about, understand or have any real interest in tech other than a vague attachment to the idea that it’s “important, somehow.” As a result, mainstream tech coverage is focused on market effects (like artificial intelligence, or whatever other “thing” everybody wants to read about) rather than directing coverage from the perspective of “what things are happening to people in real life as a result of technology.”

I also think that the tech media has been infiltrated and controlled by people that want to be famous or associated with famous people. They want them to win. They want a benevolent dictator. They want their products to do well so that they can get the interview with the big-name founder or CEO on stage at a conference. They want access to them for interviews, and they want to make sure they get the first look at their next product release. While one might argue that “people want to hear about AI,” what people want to hear about is largely driven by the narratives the media agrees upon."

https://www.wheresyoured.at/what-were-fighting-for/

#BigTech #RotEconomy #Enshittification #Technology #TechJournalism #Media #News

Metadata on U.S. government memos reveals authors linked to Project 2025 #techjournalism https://buff.ly/4aAe4sQ

#media #journalism #politics

A true hardware guru has logged off for the last time 💻 Gordon Mah Ung, PCWorld editor and host of The Full Nerd, leaves behind 25+ years of benchmark-setting tech journalism. His contributions to PC knowledge will remain in the system registry of our hearts. #TechJournalism #PCWorld

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/12/24/0156244/gordon-mah-ung-pcworld-editor-and-renowned-hardware-journalist-dies-at-58

"A bias in favor of industry assertions is one we’ve seen over and over again — not just from Newton, but from tech journalism more widely. In January of this year, Newton admitted in an interview on his Hard Fork podcast with crypto investor Chris Dixon that he “deeply regret[ted]” trying to “keep an open mind” about crypto because almost everything he wrote was “at best irrelevant or at worst was stuff that people lost a whole lot of money on” when he looked back at it. The skeptics were right about crypto, as he admitted in December 2022, a year after the bubble burst. But just like the industry folks he frequently talks to, Newton wants to assure his readers that this time they’re wrong.

In his paywalled response to the pushback he received, Newton asserts he’s not ignorant to the drawbacks of AI, pointing to some reporting he’s done on subjects like deepfakes — reporting that hasn’t made him rethink using AI-generated images trained on stolen work to illustrate some of his stories. But in asserting AI is “real and dangerous,” Newton is largely echoing the AI safety position — one which effectively asserts that AI will match and exceed human intelligence, and that we need to be worried about the consequences of such a development."

https://disconnect.blog/dismissing-critics-has-real-and-dangerous-consequences/

#TechJournalism #TechCriticism #AI #GenerativeAI #BigTech #SiliconValley #AIHype #Journalism