There’s a perception, and it’s only a perception, that somehow trade media
journalism is a lesser cousin to mainstream media journalism. And it annoys
me. Partly because that’s nonsense, and partly because, as far as I can
tell, it’s a myth propagated by members of the MSM to feel better about
themselves.

Some people think that all we do in the trade media is say nice things about
manufacturers. I know that in talking with mainstream journalists, many
think that we don’t dig up stories, that all we do is write gushing product
reviews and paraphrase press releases.

That’s patently crap. Those of us in the CE trade media do real journalism.

I’m STILL bitter about the fact that in 2008 I broke a story about how Best
Buy was recruiting finance professionals to staff their nascent Venture
Capital arm. The story ran on CE Pro, both online and in print, and when
the story again broke in a major daily newspaper a week later, the
journalists who wrote their story gave me zero credit for having the scoop.
I even called them out on it via email, and their response managed to both
acknowledge that I was first and yet still be patronizing.

Argh.

On the bright side, more than one tech media outlet took my side at the
time, and wagged their fingers at the newspaper for failing to give credit
where it was due, so that was encouraging.

The simple fact is that CE trade journalism is totally different from being
a publicist. PR professionals promote their client’s products. The trade
media’s job is to report news. A new tablet is news. The PR flacks will tell
you that it’s a cutting-edge design from a market leader in the industry.
That’s their job. The fact that it will ship in April and sell for $599 is
news. That’s our job. And if it turns out that it doesn’t work, or the
battery sometimes explodes, well that’s news too. And we’ll tell you.

In the meantime, let me ask you this: What were the business and finance
journalists in the mainstream media doing in the years leading up to the
global financial meltdown? I’ll tell you, most of them were writing puff
pieces about how smart this hedge fund manager was, or how astute that
Investment Bank’s prop trading desks were.

Remember Lehman Brothers? How about Bear Sterns? And who can forget AIG?
Right up until those companies fell off a cliff, the business press was IN
LOVE with them. Nothing but softball questions to their executives, and
pointless trivia about sports cars, Scotch and cigars.

So, tell me again who the puff-piece writing cheerleaders are? Mainstream
journalists need to get over themselves. In the meantime, those of us in the
trade media have real work to do.