Chasing Federal Government IT Stories the Old-Fashioned Way (Video)

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Wayne Rash is a crusty old IT reporter who lives near Washington D.C. and covers a lot of Federal Government actions, especially those that have to do with technology, for several well-known publications. He did a lot of the original coverage of both the LightSquared debacle and AT&T's attempt to buy T-Mobile. Note the word "original" in there. An awful lot of today's online "news" stories quote other stories. Wayne is totally not a fan of that kind of "reporting," as you'll learn toward the end of this video. What he *does* respect is the old-fashioned way of gathering information: lots of research and digging.

That's not reporting

[crazyjj]

*Real* technology reporting involves aggregating a story that's based on another story that's based on a blog-post that's based on a press release from a company or interest group.

Re:

[azalin]

Doesn't there have to be some source at the end of the line? Even if it's just a 10 year olds facebook comment...

Re:

[MasterPatricko]

Nah, just post the story simultaneously to different sites and have them reference each other

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[crazyjj]

Hey, that's the best way to get corroborating sources.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Wow, that dude must really hate /.

[Anonymous Coward]

Around we make sure to only link to a blog post linking to a news article that's "that kind of 'reporting'", with at least another one or two layers of repeating for good measure.

A real journalist supporting journal

[mwfischer]

It's a shame what happened to this once fine profession.

Now it's a bunch of window lickers who learn to shoot from the hip for the quickest public (exclusives sell), not check facts and rely on rumors, and mutiliate the English language. I call this twitch journalism.

Unfortunately the blogosphere took over (quick instant information anyone can publish) and I get to see which drug Lindsay Lohan overdosed on today and which brand of shoes are hot fashion. While the increased speed of information propagation

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Or some old media is adapting. Newspapers, for example, publish daily or less so have no need to break a story out nanoseconds after it happened.

The extra time can be used to properly research things out and try to get more than one side of a story (in an attempt to publish first, the other side's story if often forgotten because it would mean publishing seconds later. Quel horreur!).

Or to report on things that don't make for quick soundbites or appear to matter. Or to which news changes so frequently (thin

Artificial Life

[hipp5]

Following up on the story about the app store simulated as artificial life, it'd be interesting to examine optimal strategies in other topics, such as news reporting. This man seems to be following the "innovate" strategy, while a lot of our news sources are "CopyCat" stratgey. Seems to work out better for the CopyCats... but I do wonder where the balance is before there's not enough original content.

The news is a commodity

[onyxruby]

The news is a commodity, the associated press and Reuters have made it so, even if by accident. There are only two ways for a news source to avoid being a commodity:

User experience: Can I browse your news source and have a better experience that another site? Does you website annoy me with interactive ads, does it have a good layout etc?

Original material: Can I get original high quality material from your news source that I can't get elsewhere? Look at the Wall Street Journal, lots of original content, and

Transcript

[QuasiSteve]

Title: Chasing Federal Government IT Stories
Description: Wayne Rash is a crusty old IT reporter who covers a lot of Federal Government actions, especially those that have to do with technology, for several well-known publications. How does he do it?

00:00) <TITLE>
SlashdotTV logo bar reading "Wayne Rash is a senior tech reporter for eWeek and other well-known publications" appears over a view of the interviewee, Wayne Rash, sitting in a room cluttered with materials, with the picture fading from a grey

The fifth estate can't stand warrantless wiretaps

[Deliveranc3]

Since it's SO easy to get a free phoneline online (Skype, etc.) it's clear that the phone communications are going to become more like email in the future (essentially untrustworthy). It's time to consider building more anonymity into the system for users who want it.