Tech Bloggers and "real" news

SuperMatt said:

I assume a number of people that read MacRumors also read Daring Fireball. Mr. Gruber has decided that he's going to dedicate multiple posts to a Bin Laden story with questionable sourcing. I certainly can't tell him what to write about, but I like reading his site because it's about Macs, iPhones, etc. If I want news, I'll read the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, or some other reliable news source.

What do you think when a tech blogger decides to start writing about totally unrelated stuff like this? It turns me off personally and makes me want to look elsewhere.

Click to expand...

Why should the tech world think it is completely insulated from and immune to economic forces and political events that happen in the world?

If a story is well written and credibly sourced, I have no problems at all with it appearing in a publication which views itself primarily as one dedicate to tech and tech related matters.

Indeed, on occasion, some of the most interesting stories can come from that intersection where two areas of interest - and possibly expertise - intersect, converge and collide, as angles and ideas and sources which might be be considered by more mainstream news media can be entertained by a specialist source.

SuperMatt said:

I assume a number of people that read MacRumors also read Daring Fireball. Mr. Gruber has decided that he's going to dedicate multiple posts to a Bin Laden story with questionable sourcing. I certainly can't tell him what to write about, but I like reading his site because it's about Macs, iPhones, etc. If I want news, I'll read the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, or some other reliable news source.

What do you think when a tech blogger decides to start writing about totally unrelated stuff like this? It turns me off personally and makes me want to look elsewhere.

Click to expand...

Maybe you are turned off only because you don't agree with his positions on the Bin Laden issues?

mgguy said:

Maybe you are turned off only because you don't agree with his positions on the Bin Laden issues?

Click to expand...

Surely that would be too simplistic a stance to take?

SuperMatt said:

It's not that. I don't go to ESPN to read about the stock market news, nor do I open up Engadget when I want to read about unrest in Syria. Now, if there was something about people using twitter or some other portable tech to avoid dying in Syria or something, that would make sense. That's not the case in the example I gave.

It comes down to expertise too. I wouldn't trust a sports reporter to visit CES and give me any useful information at all. Same for a tech blogger and international espionage.

Click to expand...

But you are missing the point that sometimes that exact nexus allows for the exploration of stories from an angle that might not have been touched - and possibly could not have been touched - or even considered - by the mainstream experts.

For example, today, in the Guardian, I read an extraordinarily interesting article in the 'sports' section about the decline in footballers and managers who claim to identify with the Left, and who say that they vote left, and who have come from the sort of background where identifying with the left would be considered normal, (neither Bill Shankly nor Alex Ferguson ever hid the fact of their support for the Labour Party) and the article proceeded to explore some of the reasons - which were fascinating - why this change had - or might have - come about.

Personally, I have little to no interest in sports, but I am interested in politics - and, when I read articles which can call upon an expertise which has come from two or more distinct fields, which can use knowledge of one to inform an attempt at analysis in the other, I will often read such a thing with interest. This is why I find the writings of people such as Simon Kuper, or Nick Hornby, of such interest.

SuperMatt said:

I assume a number of people that read MacRumors also read Daring Fireball. Mr. Gruber has decided that he's going to dedicate multiple posts to a Bin Laden story with questionable sourcing. I certainly can't tell him what to write about, but I like reading his site because it's about Macs, iPhones, etc. If I want news, I'll read the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, or some other reliable news source.

What do you think when a tech blogger decides to start writing about totally unrelated stuff like this? It turns me off personally and makes me want to look elsewhere.

Click to expand...

I stopped reading DF a few months ago. No reason other than I culled my rss feeds. Gruber has on occasion opined on non-tech subjects in the past, though. Maybe he just finds this story interesting, perhaps because Sy Hersh appears to have gone completely insane.

SuperMatt said:

It's not that. I don't go to ESPN to read about the stock market news, nor do I open up Engadget when I want to read about unrest in Syria. Now, if there was something about people using twitter or some other portable tech to avoid dying in Syria or something, that would make sense. That's not the case in the example I gave.

It comes down to expertise too. I wouldn't trust a sports reporter to visit CES and give me any useful information at all. Same for a tech blogger and international espionage.

Click to expand...

However, Nate Silver, who used his formulas for predicting outcomes of sporting events, took his game to the political arena, and accurately predicted the 2012 POTUS election, down to the last state.

With that, FiveThirtyEight became very trustworthy. And that's going from ESPN, to the NYT, to his own site.

BL.

Quite frankly, your complaining about something so insignificant annoys me more than a blogger who posts an occasional off-topic post. Don't they know how hard it is to skip past a post you don't wan tot read?

I don't think I would trust Gruber to report on anything.

I agree and for this reason I say the following:
Selective reading is your friend, I do it all the time and guess what? It just works.

I think one of the biggest differences between DF and some of the other sites you mentioned (like ESPN, or even tech-focused sites like the Verge) is that Daring Fireball is very much John Gruber's voice. It's a one-man site, so it can be. On the other hand, there are dozens of writers or more for the Verge and even more for sites like ESPN.

I can't say that I care for everything he posts on his site, much less agree with everything he writes, but I respect that it's his website, his platform and his views. I can choose to read it, ignore it, or quit reading the site altogether.

I choose to keep coming back because I appreciate many of his Apple and Technology related links and articles, but I usually ignore his baseball and political links (which are more linked list posts than op-ed pieces).

I wouldn't trust anything that Gruber writes. That man is a slimeball.

roadbloc said:

I wouldn't trust anything that Gruber writes. That man is a slimeball.

Click to expand...

THAT requires explication.