And here's the flipside of my “This is the value of professional journalism” – an example of such poor-quality journalism that you wonder what the point of it all is.
Unknown to nearly everyone outside the media world, there is an ongoing battle between journalists and so-called public relations people (aka PRs). It's very simple to explain. Companies like to appear in publications – that way people get to hear about them, and buy products from them.
But large numbers of company executives don't believe that “any publicity is good publicity” and they only like to appear in print if something nice is being said about them. Executives also hate being pinned down by a journalist and asked why his company's product doesn't work, or is twice the price of everyone else's or exactly what happened during the slightly shady deal that companies cut all the time.
And so these companies hire people to deal with the press for them. But journalists being the monsters they are, bad stories will still occasionally appear. The nice thing is though that at this point the company execs have someone to shout out, to blame, and if they really want to feel better, fire.
The flipside of this is some companies that are just so powerfully dull that no journalist wants to write about them because they don't care and neither will their customers. Unfortunately such dull companies are also full of execs with large egos who like to see themselves in print being wonderfully wise about whatever dull product they produce and sell.
And so they also hire people to *get them* into the press. And if they don't appear, they want to know where their money is going. Plus of course, they want all this writing to be wonderfully glowing about how great they are.
From the PR person's perspective therefore the solution is obvious. Control and restrict journalists as much as humanely possible. Threaten, cajole, flatter, whatever to get nice positive coverage about their client in the press and the cheques will keep coming.
From the journalist's perspective, this person standing in the way of the people that actually know what is going on (in the majority of cases, the PR people have next to no understanding of the company's everyday affairs). Moreover, that person will do everything they can to prevent the journalist from finding out negative information about their client and through fear of being shouted at, this approach often consists of the PR people becoming over-censorious.
For the last 10 years, the journalists have been losing this battle. And for a very simple reason: resources. Companies can throw money and therefore people at preventing news from coming out because it is worth more to them than the financial damage that negative news would cause.
Meanwhile, journalism is increasingly run on smaller and smaller budgets. Manpower is lower every year. A reporter cannot spend a week on a story anymore. Journalists are also very badly paid, so the profession attracts fewer highly intelligent people and more ego-maniacs who are only interested in being famous or spending time with people that are famous.
On top of this, companies are increasingly paying trained journalists a lot more money to produce pre-formed content that makes them look good. This content is supplied to the press very very cheaply, often for free. And the press just knocks it out, unquestioningly.
However, this creeping cancer has got so bad that young journalists entering the profession think of it as normal. Training also costs money so most journos learn “on the job” and these days that comprises filtering through press releases put out by companies. Huge numbers of young journalists don't actually realise what real news values are because they've never had them drilled into them.
Instead, especially on less mainstream publications, journalism has been reduced to force-fed rewrites of company's press releases. What is even worse is that without training young and cheap journalists don't even have the writing skills of the press relations people.
And so we occasionally have the insane situation where a story appears in a publication that takes an unthinking – and therefore utterly biased – approach, and which is actually worse than the original press release it has been copied from.
Don't believe me? Here then is just one example that caught my eye, and caused me to despair for the future of the Fourth Estate.
The press release from a company called Brand Rex:
Brand-Rex is advising all those involved in the specification and commissioning of 10GBASE-T networks to be absolutely clear on the capabilities and future-proofing of their cabling. Some cabling manufacturers have already demonstrated Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) solutions to overcome Alien Crosstalk (AXT) and electromagnetic interference (EMI), through a combination of new cable designs and revised installation practices. However, according to Brand-Rex, the long-term practicalities of these solutions may be called into question as 10G Ethernet solutions are increasingly deployed throughout the coming years.
Further seminar feedback saw a number of companies looking to install 10 Gigabit Ethernet within the next twelve months and all respondents sited performance and quality of the system to be their key influencing factor in the selection of a cabling system provider. The subject of 10 Gigabit Ethernet is clearly one that is provoking considerable interest in the market currently, to the extent that the Manchester seminar venue had to be changed to accommodate the number of registered delegates.
“We should remember that standards for 10GBASE-T are still in development and that some aspects of the technology remain largely undefined. Currently the market is confused about 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Rather than try to manipulate this confusion for short term commercial gain, we believe that it is our duty as a leading manufacturer to educate those who are to make important decisions that will affect network performance both today and in the future,†said Ian Wilkie, Head of Marketing, Brand-Rex.
Brand-Rex is now the only leading manufacturer that has not specifically launched a ‘new’ UTP solution for 10GBASE-T. According to the company, issues surrounding UTP’s sensitivity to issues like AXT and EMI, make its long-term use for 10GBASE-T applications highly uncertain – particularly for links of more than 55m in length….
[and so on]
The “news story” that appeared on the front page of Networking Plus:
Following feedback from over 100 UK and Ireland-based companies that attended its recent seminars in London, Glasgow, Manchester and Dublin, structured cabling solutions provider, Brand Rex, says that most UK users would opt for a shielded system as far as 10GB Ethernet (10GBASE-T) is concerned.
But another major supplier, Systimax has now thrown its weight behind UTP cabling solutions while ADC Krone is shipping both. ADC Krone spokesperson, Kevin Anderson, contends that the only major demand in the UK is for 10GB UTP.
And with ratification of the Cat6 IEEE 802.3an (10GBASE-T) standard not expected until mid-2006, any installer considering a 10GBASE-T network deployment faces some tough decisions with regards opting for a shielded or unshielding cabling solution.
“We should remember that standards for 10GBASE-T are still in development and that some aspects of the technology remain largely undefined,” argues Ian Wilkie of Brand-Rex. For example, although some cabling manufacturers have already demonstrated UTP solutions that overcome alien crosstalk and electromagnetic interference, via a combination of new cable designs and revised installation practices, the long-term practicalities of these solutions may be called into question as 10GB Ethernet deployments gather pace.”
[and on and on and on]
