About journalists, social networks and common sense
This article will be quite emotional. But if there is a problem - you need to talk about it. Or write.
Recently, it was just a haven for informational masochists - all key players announced new services, mobile devices, operating systems, etc. This provoked the production of a huge amount of informational stool, which is piling on us just from everywhere. And they write this, as you already guessed, “journalists”. On duty, I have to read the “exhausts” of all these people, who proudly call themselves “journalists” and “experts”. I want to say that this is not always the case.
Firstly, if a person writes boring or not boring reviews of Android phones, fingering on an iPhone or on a Windows Phone, then this doesn’t make him a journalist. Secondly, if some conditional ITNews resource writes news like “Google announced Glass” or “Apple Shares have risen by XX%,” then this is not journalism either. And even the presence of XXX visitors per day and a formal crust “press” does not give the majority of IT-writers the right to be called journalists. Why? Well, for the same reason, why “coder”, “programmer” and “developer” are not the same thing. Having a bayan on the stage automatically makes our performance musical (s), right?
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In my opinion, there are several problems with domestic IT journalism.
Incompetence. This is when a person writes [a certain statement], and then adds [several paragraphs] bile, diluting it all with a personal opinion that all developers, marketers, managers (underline the necessary) are full of profane people, and indeed, you won’t believe, sleep with other men . After the author specifies that “some statement”! = “Reality”, it turns out that you, too, sleep with the peasants.
Bias , in my opinion, is the worst thing that can happen to a real journalist. But it is worth reading most of the resources, you know that very many publications are very biased. Here I will even put +1 LiveJournal, where people (usually) write about their thoughts without double standards.
Twisting the facts and yellowing. 157 people took part in our online survey - 100% of users indicated that they have internet! Familiar? The results of such surveys appear every day on all kinds of resources. But in order to make a normal survey, it is necessary to interview a sufficiently large audience (there is a special method of counting the minimum required number of respondents, in which a poll with N questions or criteria can be considered statistically reliable). At the same time, respondents should be of different professions, material condition, live in different regions of the country, have different professions, education, marital status, etc. Thus, even for the simplest survey, you need to attract several thousand people. Next, you need to remove the anomalous data (those that differ by 50 or more percent from the average), interpolate or smooth the data, and consider not the arithmetic average (as many do), but the median. Next, it is necessary to calculate the sampling errors, and only after that we can talk about some kind of data reliability. I think it is not necessary to say that very few people do this. But the figures that are obtained from such “objective” surveys and studies are replicated by all the same experts in their own way.
“Apple sold 13 million devices - that's great,” one journalist will probably write. “Apple sold less than 1 million devices than last quarter - Apple’s end,” another one notes. And only a few will write “Apple sold 13 million devices, which is 1 million devices less than in the previous quarter.” Feel the difference?
Obsession with quantitative parameters. Those. efficiency often comes down to discussing who has the cooler counter and who has more followers on facebook. The quality of materials, and, most importantly, the audience all do not care.
I know a lot of talented people who have their own style, but very rarely write on their blogs. They are not engaged in IT journalism, because it is not as profitable a business as working out or consulting. But they don’t want to share their thoughts and experiences, because a) their blog without professional SMM / SEO / purchased traffic will not be seen in the avalanche of information garbage b) anyway, the “ikspert” will come running, which are clearly “ - asshole ”(by the way, it depends a little on the text) will diagnose everything written or said. And even if you have 20 years of experience, 10 certifications and two successful companies behind them - this is not an argument. “The author is an asshole”, “I did not read it, but I condemn it” - these are the real arguments in 2012.
I’ll just say that I don’t consider myself a journalist (although I’ve already written a lot of informational nonsense and not only, I’m running websites, where I also write a lot of things to be “in trend”, which I like less and less every day), although all the laws of the genre can claim this proud title.
At the university, he somehow tried to get a job in a local newspaper by a JOURNALIST, offering to write articles about the history of his native city, to cover sports and technical events. I was told directly: we need snot, dirt, stench, and some sort of shit that “People will be hawking”. Many years have passed, and the people "are still havat." But the target audience of the newspaper is simple people, without three higher education and PHP and C # at the media level. What is happening now in the discussions of virtually all the little-bit IT resources - srach, transition to personalities, a collection of rumors, gossip multiplied by stereotypes, after which you realize that even mass executions will not save the country. The number of “carriers” just rolls over, but as a result, as Zadornov said, we have a “country of morons”. After the elections in both countries, there is no doubt about this.
It all happened for a reason - at first there was a boom in blogging, now it was social networking. If earlier it was necessary to know at least a little what blogger or wordpress is, then with the spread of social networks you don’t need to know. As China became the world, and VKontakte became the Internet for whole generations. Seals, cards, quotes smart people - now it is our information world. Either put up with it, or move away!
Now we have come to the situation that the news that “a student of Kiev University with shouts for Jobs, for iPhone! jumped out of the window ”reprinted 20 leading publications of the country, and experts (as without them), immediately predict a quick death to all competitors Apple. And then it spreads through social networks and other means of communication, after which people write in Skype: what, really jumped out? #facepalm, friends.
Another problem is the fact that there are so-called opinion leaders - people who have a lot of weight in the information space. The problem with most “trend setters” is that they almost always change reality to fit their needs, and hamsters (people whose behavioral algorithm depends on how their ideological mentor thinks) believe them. And our opinion leaders are strange: it’s normal for them not to answer letters, calls are the norm, sending them publicly * is also normal. What can I say - the chances that the IT gurus from sunny California will respond to you on Twitter are an order of magnitude higher than the deputy deputy junior assistant to the senior partner of the district to go to Microsoft MastDay.
During the information boom it is very important to maintain common sense. If I had to decide which employee to hire, experienced or thinking, I would choose the latter. Since experience is a gainful business, but people with a thought are becoming less and less common.
My advice - do not rush to conclusions, study the arguments of various parties, form your opinion, and do not rely on the opinion of a friend, friend or boss. And listen more. Sometimes just listen.
Thanks for attention!
Recently, it was just a haven for informational masochists - all key players announced new services, mobile devices, operating systems, etc. This provoked the production of a huge amount of informational stool, which is piling on us just from everywhere. And they write this, as you already guessed, “journalists”. On duty, I have to read the “exhausts” of all these people, who proudly call themselves “journalists” and “experts”. I want to say that this is not always the case.
Firstly, if a person writes boring or not boring reviews of Android phones, fingering on an iPhone or on a Windows Phone, then this doesn’t make him a journalist. Secondly, if some conditional ITNews resource writes news like “Google announced Glass” or “Apple Shares have risen by XX%,” then this is not journalism either. And even the presence of XXX visitors per day and a formal crust “press” does not give the majority of IT-writers the right to be called journalists. Why? Well, for the same reason, why “coder”, “programmer” and “developer” are not the same thing. Having a bayan on the stage automatically makes our performance musical (s), right?
')
In my opinion, there are several problems with domestic IT journalism.
Incompetence. This is when a person writes [a certain statement], and then adds [several paragraphs] bile, diluting it all with a personal opinion that all developers, marketers, managers (underline the necessary) are full of profane people, and indeed, you won’t believe, sleep with other men . After the author specifies that “some statement”! = “Reality”, it turns out that you, too, sleep with the peasants.
Bias , in my opinion, is the worst thing that can happen to a real journalist. But it is worth reading most of the resources, you know that very many publications are very biased. Here I will even put +1 LiveJournal, where people (usually) write about their thoughts without double standards.
Twisting the facts and yellowing. 157 people took part in our online survey - 100% of users indicated that they have internet! Familiar? The results of such surveys appear every day on all kinds of resources. But in order to make a normal survey, it is necessary to interview a sufficiently large audience (there is a special method of counting the minimum required number of respondents, in which a poll with N questions or criteria can be considered statistically reliable). At the same time, respondents should be of different professions, material condition, live in different regions of the country, have different professions, education, marital status, etc. Thus, even for the simplest survey, you need to attract several thousand people. Next, you need to remove the anomalous data (those that differ by 50 or more percent from the average), interpolate or smooth the data, and consider not the arithmetic average (as many do), but the median. Next, it is necessary to calculate the sampling errors, and only after that we can talk about some kind of data reliability. I think it is not necessary to say that very few people do this. But the figures that are obtained from such “objective” surveys and studies are replicated by all the same experts in their own way.
“Apple sold 13 million devices - that's great,” one journalist will probably write. “Apple sold less than 1 million devices than last quarter - Apple’s end,” another one notes. And only a few will write “Apple sold 13 million devices, which is 1 million devices less than in the previous quarter.” Feel the difference?
Obsession with quantitative parameters. Those. efficiency often comes down to discussing who has the cooler counter and who has more followers on facebook. The quality of materials, and, most importantly, the audience all do not care.
I know a lot of talented people who have their own style, but very rarely write on their blogs. They are not engaged in IT journalism, because it is not as profitable a business as working out or consulting. But they don’t want to share their thoughts and experiences, because a) their blog without professional SMM / SEO / purchased traffic will not be seen in the avalanche of information garbage b) anyway, the “ikspert” will come running, which are clearly “ - asshole ”(by the way, it depends a little on the text) will diagnose everything written or said. And even if you have 20 years of experience, 10 certifications and two successful companies behind them - this is not an argument. “The author is an asshole”, “I did not read it, but I condemn it” - these are the real arguments in 2012.
I’ll just say that I don’t consider myself a journalist (although I’ve already written a lot of informational nonsense and not only, I’m running websites, where I also write a lot of things to be “in trend”, which I like less and less every day), although all the laws of the genre can claim this proud title.
At the university, he somehow tried to get a job in a local newspaper by a JOURNALIST, offering to write articles about the history of his native city, to cover sports and technical events. I was told directly: we need snot, dirt, stench, and some sort of shit that “People will be hawking”. Many years have passed, and the people "are still havat." But the target audience of the newspaper is simple people, without three higher education and PHP and C # at the media level. What is happening now in the discussions of virtually all the little-bit IT resources - srach, transition to personalities, a collection of rumors, gossip multiplied by stereotypes, after which you realize that even mass executions will not save the country. The number of “carriers” just rolls over, but as a result, as Zadornov said, we have a “country of morons”. After the elections in both countries, there is no doubt about this.
It all happened for a reason - at first there was a boom in blogging, now it was social networking. If earlier it was necessary to know at least a little what blogger or wordpress is, then with the spread of social networks you don’t need to know. As China became the world, and VKontakte became the Internet for whole generations. Seals, cards, quotes smart people - now it is our information world. Either put up with it, or move away!
Now we have come to the situation that the news that “a student of Kiev University with shouts for Jobs, for iPhone! jumped out of the window ”reprinted 20 leading publications of the country, and experts (as without them), immediately predict a quick death to all competitors Apple. And then it spreads through social networks and other means of communication, after which people write in Skype: what, really jumped out? #facepalm, friends.
Another problem is the fact that there are so-called opinion leaders - people who have a lot of weight in the information space. The problem with most “trend setters” is that they almost always change reality to fit their needs, and hamsters (people whose behavioral algorithm depends on how their ideological mentor thinks) believe them. And our opinion leaders are strange: it’s normal for them not to answer letters, calls are the norm, sending them publicly * is also normal. What can I say - the chances that the IT gurus from sunny California will respond to you on Twitter are an order of magnitude higher than the deputy deputy junior assistant to the senior partner of the district to go to Microsoft MastDay.
During the information boom it is very important to maintain common sense. If I had to decide which employee to hire, experienced or thinking, I would choose the latter. Since experience is a gainful business, but people with a thought are becoming less and less common.
My advice - do not rush to conclusions, study the arguments of various parties, form your opinion, and do not rely on the opinion of a friend, friend or boss. And listen more. Sometimes just listen.
Thanks for attention!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/159841/
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