[RFI] WSJ-BPL

[Mike Coslo]

Jim Brown wrote:

>On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:11:53 -0000, Jim Jarvis wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I spoke with Ken Brown, the reporter who wrote the WSJ piece,
>>yesterday.  Although he works in the WSJ's technology section,
>>he freely admits he's not technical. 
>>    
>>
>
>This is a a common problem with the popular press. Their people are
>competent ONLY as "writers" and as reporters of events that their
>education has made them competent to understand. Few, if any, are
>competent to report on issues of a technical nature. The press takes
>the position that if they report all views on a topic that they have
>been fair and accurate. Never mind that some of those views are
>inaccurate or distorted, and that some are technically correct -- the
>reporter can't tell the difference, so he/she reports them. 
>
>This is how the press releases turn into "scientific breakthroughs,"
>and observations of scientic fact that conflict with those releases are
>described as the "claims" of a fringe group of technical throwbacks.
>You can see this problem in virtually any story where the issues are
>largely technical. I work in pro audio, and I see it it the reviews of
>the acoustics of performance spaces, and of the sound at public events.
>My wife is a scientist working in the development side of the
>pharmaceutical industry. She sees it in reporting on that industry, and
>even in publications that try very hard to be impartial (like Consumer
>Reports). 
>
>Until this system is exposed and discredited, we can expect to be the
>loser in any public relations game. What we SHOULD be doing is writing
>to the editors of these publications and urging them to hire engineers
>who are technically competent with respect to these issues, are good
>writers, and have the professionalism to treat them in a truly
>impartial fashion. 
>  
>
    I agree with everything up until your last paragraph, Jim.

    I don't think that the cure is having an engineer do the writing, I 
believe it is having a writer that knows how to talk to engineers. The 
engineer by training will profess in his or her field, and at least the 
ones I know will usually defer to another once the subject matter is not 
what they have been trained in. Wonderful for engineering, but not for 
writing. Much better a technically oriented writer that can communicate 
with the "smart guys".

    I agree that having non-technical people trying to write technical 
based stories is a bad thing.

    One of the problems is that the non-technical writer is listening to 
the Marketing wonks that are pitching their sell to him in a language he 
or she can understand. They know *very* well how to do that. We're 
showing a ham working mobile.

Lighthearted mode on:

    Possible ARS oriented commercial:

    A hurricane tears a southern town apart. An operator is trying to 
get a message through to another place to order medical supplies. The 
station on the other end keeps asking him to repeat because of all the 
electrical noise. Cut to a dark room, with a teenager surfing the web 
with a buddy. One turns to the other, saying "Wow, I'm glad we got BPL, 
I've never been able to download the pix from "Barely legal Babes of 
(Insert that same city's name here) so fast before we got BPL!"
 
Screen goes black with scrolling text: We lost our emergency 
communications - at least our kids can download porn!  - Support BPL???

Lighthearted mode off.............. maybe.

    - Mike KB3EIA -