Journalists Defend Media, as ITIF Study Finds Tech Reporting More Negative

In 1986, about 60 percent of articles that ex-fellow Doug Allen and current ITIF Vice President Daniel Castro reviewed from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post were considered "uncontested positive." In 2013, the latest year studied, 52 percent of coverage was "uncontested negative" or "lean negative," based on our calculations of underyling results. On the panel and in a follow-up interview, speakers speculated that the negative tone may be reflected in execution of government policy.

Advocates for the tech industry said they welcomed scrutiny from journalists but worried that some "Luddites" and other critics got too much attention. The report said that a “privacy panic cycle” in the cyber realm has colored much media tech coverage, in that journalists "recognize more extreme claims, thereby creating an incentive for activists to steadily escalate their rhetoric about the negative implications of technology. ... Academics and civil society actors are most often quoted as naysayers, with concern about the risks of technology outweighing the optimism." Castro, who moderated Wednesday's panel, previously wrote about "privacy panic" (see 1509100053).

Advocates for tech and skeptics of it can make worthwhile contributions to tech journalism, but not Luddites, said panelist Morgan Reed, executive director of ACT|The App Association. Politico Pro Technology Reporter Ashley Gold, USTelecom Vice President-Media Affairs and ex-reporter Amy Schatz, and Pulitzer Prize winner and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Knight Science Journalism Program Director Deborah Blum generally don't think journalists single out tech for more criticism than other sectors. They said successful product launches and other positive tech news may get less attention by some in media than do failures, akin to reporting on other areas.

Were news more positive, regulatory and other interpretations of existing rules and laws might be more favorable to development of new tech products, Castro hypothesized in an interview. He said a rosier tint could emerge even within journalism norms focusing on events that aren't always positive: "Journalism can still be inquisitive, skeptical, challenge authority, do all the things that we want good journalism to do, and you can come out with different outcomes." He would like to see "holding to account the well-funded advocacy groups that are raising lots of money around fearful" views of tech. Release of the study, in the works for over a year, "isn’t meant to be a further attack on the media while they are already under attack," Castro said. No outside entity funded or influenced the report, he said. The group's honorary and board co-chairs are members of Congress from both parties; some other directors have tech ties.

It's like the "if it bleeds, it leads" mantra among crime reporters, said Blum. A successful satellite launch usually gets less attention than a crash, notwithstanding recent coverage of some of SpaceX's successes that followed some problems, said panelists such as Schatz. ITIF's study said more negative stories come after "a significant increase in the number of 'civil-society' organizations over the last two decades that are dedicated to identifying potential harms that may be associated with technology and are well practiced in rallying opposition through the media." The report also pointed to shrinking newsroom staffs, which panelist and Pew Research Center Senior Researcher Katerina Matsa also mentioned.

The decline of newspaper reporters hasn't been fully offset by the growth in online and other new media, said Matsa. "In this environment, it may be easier to simply quote the professional technology critics without critically examining the merits of their claims and questioning whether they deserve to be repeated," wrote Allen and Castro. "Since media outlets generate revenue from page views, they have an incentive to pursue stories that generate clicks." Matsa said public trust in media, already low, is even lower for online than traditional news. Allen is now a managing consultant at Energy+Environmental Economics, and did the study before going there, Castro said.

Not all media were criticized. ACT's Reed praised the likes of Gizmodo, which had a journalist in the audience, for its consumer-oriented coverage. Tweeting on the event, Gizmodo's Libby Watson thanked Schatz for saying coverage of tech isn't too pessimistic, adding that reporters are supposed to be skeptical.