Dealing with the Press

From: evan <evan947_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Tue Oct 28 23:49:23 2003

This is getting ridiculously off-topic -- which is
supposed to be vintage computing.

However I can't sit here and let all this bullcrap fly
by my screen without defending my profession.

Yes, there's a LOT of bad journalism, and a lot of
propoganda disguising itself as journalism. But there
are a lot of bullshitters and pretenders in ANY field.
 And in any field, it's a sad reality that those who
suck make the good ones look bad.

The vast majority of American news reporters are
perfectly competent, conscientious, upstanding
citizens, who've chosen the field because they want to
make a difference in their communities. If one such
reporter stumbles on someone's vintage computer
collection, and decides that it might make an
interesting human interest story, then for Pete's
sake, EMBRACE THAT.

Conversely, being obnoxious, uninformed, and snobby,
are some of the qualities that make the mass public
distrust computer nerds just as much as they
generalize the media or lawyers or politicians or
health insurance companies or energy firms.

Now, I ** know ** most computer nerds are NOT
obnoxious, uninformed, or snobby. I know most truly
care and want to make the world a better place. And I
know this because I'm ONE of them, in my spare time.
But as a reporter in the daytime, I feel the exact
same way toward that responsibility.

So please, fellow vintage computer fans, stop this
obnoxious, uninformed, and snobby (and just plain
stupid) press-bashing. A sad event at The New York
Times or muckraking from centuries ago has 100 percent
zilch to do with the honest, curious, blue-collar
community newspaper reporter who just thought our neat
little tech collections were interesting.

Of course I shouldn't judge ALL computer collectors by
the emails of so very few (see the point?)
Received on Tue Oct 28 2003 - 23:49:23 GMT