Big Technology Podcast - Reporter Roundtable: Discussing Media Narratives and Tech Industry Attacks On The Press

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

When the Big Technology Podcast debuted last month, The Verge’s Casey Newton joined to talk about why people can’t stand the tech press. Our wide-ranging discussion explored how tech reporters should be more upfront about their values, how algorithms and social media reframe their work, and why some go astray in the quest for retweets. But there was more to discuss.  This week, three talented reporters—Bloomberg’s Eric Newcomer, the Financial Times’ Hannah Murphy, and OneZero’s Brian Merchant—join the show to pick up where Newton left off. 

Hannah? Hi. Yeah. Hey, what's up? We finally got you on. Eric. Hey, how's it going? Good.

Brian, are you there? I am. Hello. Okay, great. Let's get going. I'll just roll the music. Hello and welcome to the big technology. Hello and welcome to the big technology podcast, a show for Com.

cool-headed and nuanced conversation about the tech world, much less yelling than you get elsewhere. It's our new tagline. We're going to roll with it in the beginning. This is Alex Cantoritz joining us today. Our three incredible reporters slash editors, we have Hannah Murphy from Financial Times, Eric Newcomer from Bloomberg and Brian Merchant from One Zero. You know, one of the things we like to do on this podcast is start conversations and have them and not end them. And a couple a couple weeks ago, I had Casey Newton on the show talking about the state of the tech press and why people are upset about it. And there were a couple of interesting threads that came after it. And, you know, for me, it's not an idea of finishing up and, you know, having that

discussion with Casey and then saying, okay, we're done with this. We haven't solved the issue. And so we're going to keep talking about it today. And Brian and Eric responded immediately after that podcast went up with some pretty interesting points. And I think we're going to start today's episode, uh, with those points and sort of expand on them. So, uh, Brian, let's let's start with you. Um, one of the things that you mentioned after that Q&A came out, Casey and I talked a lot about like outrage and, um, you know, whether reporters, uh, you know, were writing the stories, you know, with the, with the nuance that, that they deserve. Um, and then you, you pointed out that, you know, something that there's the folks in power that have a true interest in making

sure this stuff, making sure reporters are discredited. I'm just going to read your tweet. You said one very obvious reason is that tech execs and VCs, industry boosters, hate journalists, is that those parties have a vested interest in making people hate them. For a long time, the tech press could be counted on to offer up glowing endorsements of their companies and products. Now that's changed some, and information related by journalists can affect outcomes, impact their reputations, and hinder their prospects, and they hate it.

Okay, so that's an interesting perspective. I want to hear you expand a little bit on that. But I'm going to give what the pushback would be, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. So the pushback would be is that, you know, from the folks who are criticizing the tech press right now, the argument wouldn't necessarily be that they're trying to take down our companies. It's that they're overdoing it. So do you have a sense that the tech press is overdoing it at all, that they have an axe to grind? Do you buy that argument? I do not.

I think that it might feel like that to them, again, because I'm actually kind of impressed with myself with that tweet. That really said it all. It was a good tweet. Hey, we're here talking about it today. At a thousands. That's happened eventually. Right.

A small fraction has to, you know, the monkey will eventually type Hamlet. But, yeah, no, I feel like it's a bit of an unusual. situation in that technology journalists are sort of now getting this pushback from VCs, from CEOs, from execs for this unfair treatment that you're talking about, allegedly. But I really do believe that a lot of that is attributable to the fact that they got the kid glove treatment for decades, really. The tech press always kind of, I mean, the tech industry, rather. had a halo around it for the longest time.

It was this sort of this first, this curiosity, this sort of this underdog story with founders like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. And, you know, they're making these statements about wanting to make a dent in the universe. And it's sort of, the assumption is that they're trying to do good things. And because their products were so great, because that is a compelling narrative. And, you know, a lot of this has been rehashed to death. in sort of books like Fred Turner's from the counterculture to cyber culture,

which makes the pretty compelling point that there's a lot of sort of crossover that the tech industry enjoyed sort of the trappings of that sort of counterculture aura that sort of permeated its early days, so it's doing all these cool things. And as a result, you know, I think that the press kind of went along

for the ride for the long time. And especially throughout the aughts, when the tide started to turn, Silicon Valley's halo didn't really fade. So you'd have CEOs kind of joking around with journalists at tech conferences. There's the famous, you know, disrupt conference and the recode conference. And it's really this sort of very cozy environment. And it took sort of the greater tech clash, quote unquote, when, I think Facebook was the first to kind of fall and become sort of the most obviously malfeasant in the public's eyes that the dominoes, you know, among journalists started to fall.

And Casey himself talks about this moment when he realized, wait, maybe I shouldn't just automatically be on Mark Zuckerberg's side, sort of, I think he was in a jet or something on a private trip. Okay, Ryan, I get that. But like, I guess the main question. Rambly, rambly. Yeah, I know. But we know that.

Like, you know, there's definitely been this needed turn of the press in terms of its relationship with tech, where now instead of a cheerleader, they're skeptical. But focus specifically on the fact that on this argument that the tech press is overdoing it, out to get tech, and has an axe to grind. Is there truth to that? And Eric and Hannah, feel free to chime in. It was all basically preface to say, I think they got acclimated to the sense that they should be treated a certain way.

when the hard questions start coming, when people really start pushing these companies on issues like boardroom diversity or policies that are negative in terms of climate change or disinformation, or what have you, it does feel like a personal attack all of a sudden. I think because it's a countervailing force

and the shift happened so quickly, whereas sort of like the political press, you know, would be asking tough questions and politicians are used to getting their names sort of drag through the mud proverbially by the press. The tech cohort was not used to it. So it feels like they have an ass to grind, but I don't really think that's the case.

I think it's harder, realer journalism happening and it feels all of a sudden like it's, you know, that they're in the crosshairs and they don't like it. I have to say. Yeah, Hannah, let's talk to you. Yeah, I was going to say, I agree with Eric. And almost, I find this whole debate

kind of irritating and pretty self-indulgent from both sides. I feel like, why do we have to carve out the tech press from the wider press? Like Eric said, there's no debate about sort of political press, finance press, energy press. I'm doing the same thing in my role here in San Francisco as when I was back in London, covering financial services, same approach. I think about crafting stories the same way, asking questions the same way. Nothing has changed me in terms of how I operate as a journalist. What I found here in Silicon Valley is that the tech industry sort of thinks and acts like it's special and it should be carved out and therefore covered in a different way.

First of all, like Eric said, it's kind of newer, it cast itself as having this higher purpose, very sincere mission focused, but like other industries, it's profit-driven. unlike most other industries, it's very loosely regulated and pretty keen to stay that way. And also sort of the livelihood of most tech folk are kind of wrapped up in the stock price of the company, given there's often a kind of stock compensation element there, many of the pay deals. So probably more so than in other industries. So I think tech execs and staff are kind of more inclined to be sensitive to stock price and therefore bad press than others. Eric, you brought up what might be the other side of this argument, which is that the tech press can sort of cue to a narrative and, you know, present themselves as truth tellers above

all, but wherein they actually have this preconceived belief they're trying to advance. So do you want to share a little bit more about that? Yeah. I mean, so, you know, I agree with some of what's been said and disagree with some of it. Certainly, I agree with the general idea that the tech. world got used to a fawning tech press full of like gadget nerd blogger types. And then they got all these hard hitting investigative reporters and they hate that. The point where I disagree though is I, you know, I do think there's a degree to which journalists want a certain outcome in their

stories, right? Like the best stories, like Pulitzer Prize winning stories have impact. Like they don't just write a story and nothing changes. They expect something to change. And I think the tech crowd sort of feels that like some of these anti-Facebook stories, certainly a reporter wouldn't be mad if, you know, a top Facebook exec got pushed out as a result of their story because it would show impact. So I think, you know, the subjects of these stories can feel that. And I think unlike with politics where there's a clear outcome, right? You know, the media hammers you for a while, then there's an election and then the sort of narrative readjust. I don't think the tech world, business world has that, right? You know, I covered Uber super closely and, you know, was one of the

reporters hammering Travis Kalanick. And eventually, you know, he got ousted. And that allowed for sort of a narrative pivot. Then we had Dara, sort of the new CEO, turning everything away. And the media sort of does have these arguments that's making. It's like here we're, you know, Travis has done some bad things. Let's see if there are other areas where he's done something bad. I mean, it's rooted in fact, it's rooted in finding things, but the scrutiny and attention is certainly on a theme. And I think the issue with like some of these other companies, Facebook and Amazon, I'd say, in particular, there's a lot of anger towards how those companies behave, but I don't think the CEOs are about to get turned over. And so then it's sort of this question of,

okay, there's a heavy appetite for some sort of resolution to a story we've been hitting forever, like what's going to happen. And I think that creates some of the dissonance because the story get hotter and hotter, sometimes without saying anything particularly new, there's not much of a change. And so then maybe sort of end up. I just want to stop you for a second. I want to hear from your perspective being so close to the Uber story. You know, it's interesting. I feel like there are some reporters that are very, very deep into the story have brought the hammered down with meaningful new information. Then they watched the rest of the press report on this stuff. and it doesn't really make a lot of sense in terms of like what they're seeing.

They see follow on stories that sort of, this is kind of what we're talking about with narrative, follow on stories that assume a bunch of things are, you know, accurate without independently reporting them and then start to pile on a bit. I mean, I think that's, this is what the complaint is. So from on the Uber story, did you see that in particular? Yeah, I mean, so I, you know, I broke the video of Travis Kalanick in the car with the driver and then I later, wait, wait, say what that. that is. So, you know, there got a video recording of the CEO of Uber at the time, Travis

Kalanick, arguing with his driver. And the driver is saying basically, you know, you screwed me over and Travis is really defensive. And we just see sort of the broie Travis and his sort of direct confrontation with his business model. The driver, you know, emailed me and said, I have this crazy video. And after finally, he said, okay, yeah, you can run it. And like, it was very brave. And so we ran the story and the video and I think that had a big impact on Calnick's reputation and you know so that's resume I'll put that out there for my Uber credentials and then I did a big business week cover story with my okay we get it we get it you're good

yeah exactly so a lot of reporting on Uber and my point would be that a lot of the anti-travis stuff is from delete Uber which is like the stupidest part of the whole saga right Uber turns off surge pricing as people go to the airport to protest the Muslim ban. And, you know, Uber and hurricanes would turn off search pricing to, so it wouldn't get, I don't know, can I swear on this? So it wouldn't get in trouble for, you know, sort of price gouging during a disaster. So Uber turns off search pricing during this protest. And instead, it gets accused of like being anti the protest because it's not attracting people to the airport. So it was just sort of an incoherent moment of criticism that became one of the

sort of most resounding rallying cries against Uber. So it can exactly what you're saying, like you're so close to it. And then you feel like some of the sort of narratives around it are just like idiotic and don't match with the facts. So yeah, I mean, that's how I feel. Okay. Just answer yes or no, then we're going to tell us to Brian and Hannah. Did the press have a role in fanning that delete Uber outrage? Yeah, I mean, myself included because it became so big that we had to, you know, it was an entity in and of itself. So Brian and Hannah, you know, having said what you said at the top, how do you react to something like that? So first of all, I would take issue with the idea that I think the conflict comes primarily from the lack of tech journalists being able to, you know, get a, you know, get someone's head.

basically or to see someone take a fall. I mean, I can only speak to me personally as somebody who does a fair amount of critical tech journalism. My interest is never in seeing a CEO fired or trying to get someone out of their position. It's about sort of challenging the assumptions of a company or the social conditions that a company is engendering and really sort of trying to paint a broader picture about what the company is actually doing because I think that that is the part that has gone unchallenged more than, you know, malfeasant behavior is easy to sort of pull.

I mean, that was a great scoop, not knocking the scoop at all. That was a great story. I don't need any more credit. Thank you. I just want to further anoint you. Sorry. But it's, I mean, it's the fact that, like, hey, like, Amazon has been called out for having atrocious warehouse conditions for over a decade now, and nothing has changed. Right.

If you call it an ax to grind by repeatedly reporting on those conditions, repeatedly pointing out that it's hostile to union activity, that it's hostile to organizers calling for better working conditions, hostile in a lot of ways to sort of, like, the working class people that are making the company run, then yeah, you could call that grinding an axe, but it's just called not, it's not letting the story go because nothing has fundamentally changed in the way that Amazon conducts its business. And I think that that's, again, part of the mistake that people making this conception because that's the sort of thing that any other major CEO would have gotten called out for in the 80s, 90s, in the business

press in the in you know in in in sort of just raw reportage in in any other time but because again because of that of that halo effect i would argue and not only the halo effect the other thing i want to add to that is that the companies themselves got used to a sort of policy of secrecy that they were able to effectively impose for for a long time by you know starting with probably apple at the turn of the century by able to sort of selectively inviting the press to their, you know, announcements or their key sort of decisions that they would make. And again, the press kind of played along with that formation for so long that it became normalized in a sense. It became standardized. So when it snapped back, and now you both have a lot

of press feeling like they're left out cold that they can ask Uber, Apple, Amazon for comment a million times, and they get nowhere. And that probably increased. the amount of frustration that a lot of companies, I mean, that a lot of people feel towards these companies and a lot of journalists feel to these companies. I didn't get to delete Uber yet, but I've already rambled long enough, so I'll throw up to Hannah or Eric to respond. Yeah, let me, let me ask a leading question to Hannah. Have you seen, you know, you cover Facebook pretty quickly, pretty closely. Have you seen any of the similar stuff that, like, along the lines of what Eric is talking about with Uber coverage

when it comes to people saying, you know, Facebook is bad? I think, yes, there are people jumping on the sort of the bandwagon. It's easy, but I just think the whole debate is framed wrong. To me, it's a discussion about good journalism versus bad journalism, you know, in this age of decimation of the old print journalism model. And it's about good business practice versus bad journalism. bad business practice. It's not about tech press versus VCs and founders. That's just sort of everyone enjoying having a bit of a fight in their own Twitter filter bubble. Is there a resolution

to this? Like I try to think of like, you know, it's interesting. After the Casey interview, we had a lot of feedback from people who were like, I work in tech and actually I like the tech press. But there seems to be a pretty vocal segment of the tech industry that don't like reporters. And honestly, it seems like there's a bunch of reporters that don't really like them back. So is there a way for this to resolve or is this going to just sort of be, you know, an overriding tension in journalism from now on? One of the things that I've been thinking about is that, you know, unlike previous eras now, like the tech industry has sort of built the distribution for anyone to have, you know, their own little publication. much rather have, you know, people listening to that versus folks who could be even a little bit skeptical. So is this just now a feature of the world that we're living in? Or is there a

resolution where some of this, you know, sort of invective and, you know, discomfort, you know, with one another can simmer down? I think when these companies have gone, are older, when they've gone kind of through a fuller life cycle, they're currently still founder-led, founders with controlling shareholdings. I think when, you know, you have a bank, the CEO comes in for a couple of years. They have aims that they want to fulfill. If they fulfill it, they get a nice bonus,

and off they go. They're going to be far less touchy, I suppose, than the kind of founder-led company today. And I just think when these companies have aged and had periods of succession, then the whole industry will mature. I mean, I kind of think that, you know, not to go full FDR line here

and say that it has to be about, you know, welcoming the hatred. But it's, I think absolutely there should be some, there should be some tension. As long as there is a company that is, that has amassed the sort of the size and power and is, I mean, none of the, none of the tech five, none of the big five tech companies' hands are completely clean here. You know, they have all, you know, either made mistakes or have, you know, have embraced policies that have later

need to be changed or have caused issues on varying scales. So there's always going to need to be somebody there to hold the feet to the fire. And the people that get invited to do the product reviews and sort of are in that inner circle are going to tend not to be the ones making them uncomfortable. I think it's just a feature of investigative journalism. It's just a feature of like a critical press that there's just going to naturally be some animosity. And I don't think that that's ever going to go away. I mean, ideally in an ideal world, the journalism that reveals these scoops and sort of abuse, whether it's abuse of content moderators at Facebook or Amazon warehouse conditions or Google automating programs that help oil companies explore

for fossil fuels, whatever it, whatever it is, as long as that stuff's going on and reporters are uncovering it, it's going to make them uncomfortable. Ideally, that the gap narrows and they start sort of living up to the ideals that a lot of them espouse publicly. And then I think that in that case, the enmity could diminish. But on the trajectory we're currently on, it's only going to go the opposite way. It's only going to exacerbate, I think. I definitely agree with the idea that, you know, tech used to see itself as David. It became Goliath. It didn't realize it. Got a lot of tech coverage. And then there was a lot of just bristling, even though it's totally deserved because it's a powerful industry.

And, you know, yeah, I think that has to continue. I also would criticize tech people as being sort of, yeah, not particularly confrontational. San Francisco is a pretty passive-aggressive place. They're not used to sort of these like New York, Washington, sort of media types, wherever, like coming in and sort of landing heavy hits. So I definitely agree that there's something wrong with like the tech person who can't take a little criticism and scrutiny. So I agree with all that. I mean, the last point that I would make in this argument is just, I do think there's a collision of sort of the sort of purportedly neutral

objective press colliding with like a Twitter culture. And that a lot of the sort of tech people on Twitter pushing back against the media sort of, I think credibly feel that tech reporters have their own perspective on what they're writing, but then frames. their stories in sort of these neutral ways, right? I mean, if you, you know, there is sort of an ideology. I think Ben Smith has done a good job of this in his columns. I mean, there is an ideology of a reporter of, you know, transparency, right? I mean, if we just talked about the transparency part, the fact that tech companies aren't open and honest about what they're doing and don't give comment is going to make reporters mad at them because reporters believe

tech companies should be open and honest. And like, and I think that's a hard thing for us to reporters to say. And obviously on our side and think they should be transparent, but there ends up being a true sort of clash of values there. Can I also just interject real quick? I know we're over time on this section, but it's also that assumption is only in place because tech companies have themselves for a long time, if not said explicitly, then given the overwhelming impression that we are open and transparent forces for good, you know, on the public stage. So I think the tech companies in some cases are asking reporters in the public to sort of buy two different sort of versions of themselves at the same time. And the frustration between

trying to try, tech journals trying to put that together becomes palpable. Yeah, I agree. Okay. And leave it to Eric to be the guy who moves from San Francisco. to New York and now is all taking shots on the West Coast because he lives in Brooklyn. But it is a very, compared to New York, it is a gentle place. If you can't see that, then you're living in denial. Relative to New York, San Francisco is a soft city for sure. And what a note to leave it on. Well, thank you, Eric Newcomer from Bloomberg, Hannah Murphy from the Financial Times,

and Brian Merchett from One Zero. This has been a great conversation. And like I said at the top, this is a podcast where we like to start conversations and not end them. And I think we'll continue to keep talking about this stuff because I do think it's important. And it's great to have people who are in the new, such as you guys, to be able to come on and talk about it. If this is your first time coming to the Big Technology podcast, feel free to hit subscribe. And if you're a longtime listener and enjoying what we're doing, if you could give us a rating, that would be great. It'll help us with discoverability.

We always appreciate that. we will be back next Wednesday with another episode so until then i will wish you a great week and can't wait to see you next take care