Comments on: This is why Journalists suck

By: John Wilker

John Wilker — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:02:27 +0000

ha, thanks saurik! No worries. the news was definitely all you, and you deserve it 100%.

By: Jay Freeman (saurik)

Jay Freeman (saurik) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:48:19 +0000

For my part, I will say that I definitely made it clear to everyone I talked to that I was announcing the Cydia Store features at your conference ;P.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:42:47 +0000

You left out TechCrunch. I could be mistaken, but here's the situation as it went down. I'm at the Silicon Valley iPhone meetup (led by Tim Burks). I announce the show and it's incredibly low price. A shout from the audience, "Is there a TechCrunch discount?" To which I reply, "No, tickets are priced low already. There's not really room for discounts."

Now, I thought the person was asking if there was a TechCrunch discount out there. However, after relating the story, many pointed out that the guy was likely from TechCrunch and was asking for a discount code so he could write about it.

I have no way of knowing which was true, but I certainly hope that TechCrunch is not that low. With holding news that your customers could use simply because no discount was giving seems shady to me.

However, I'm with you on the press front. People keep saying they're lazy and don't want to work for a story. You have to spoon feed them, etc. I just can't believe that. Maybe it's true though. I'd hope not, because if so, that's a sad statement on journalism as a practice.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:42:01 +0000

Now, I thought the person was asking if there was a TechCrunch discount out there. However, after relating the story, many pointed out that the guy was likely from TechCrunch as was asking for a discount code so he could write about it.

I have no way of knowing which was true, but I certainly hope that TechCrunch is not that low. With holding news that your customers could use simply because no discount was giving seems shady to me.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:42:01 +0000

I have no way of knowing which was true, but I certainly hope that TechCrunch is not that low. With holding news that your customers could use simply because no discount was giving seems shady to me.

By: John Wilker

John Wilker — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:23:50 +0000

Hey Jeremy, Thanks for chiming in! I forwarded the email i sent. I would hope if it went to the wrong addy, the recipient would forward to the right one?

By: Jeremy Horwitz

Jeremy Horwitz — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:05:20 +0000

John, one of my editors e-mailed me this link, and I can tell you that I never received an e-mail from you regarding this. Please send me a quick e-mail at jeremy (at) iLounge.com and let me know where you sent your request for coverage, so that I can determine what happened — it's possible that your e-mail wasn't sent to the right address.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:58:32 +0000

Yeah, people like that annoy me to no end. You are working at a big time publication, ACT LIKE IT!

You should block them from now on. It's their loss, not yours.

Don't give up on all journalists though, there are a few of us left that actually care about journalistic integrity and doing silly things like including facts.

By: John Wilker

John Wilker — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:40:43 +0000

True True, and I made sure to not say "all" journalists suck :) I suppose "journalist" is probably the wrong term in general for most of those sites, despite what they'd like to think.

I'm especially annoyed with WSJ, and the reporter definitely earned a "no thank you" for her paper at future events. I mean, why give you a free pass if you can't be bothered to show the tiniest bit of love for the location of the news. It's not worth it to us.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:48:35 +0000

First, let me say that not all journalists suck… coughcough.

Second, those people are idiots. The "Who, what, when, where, how and why" is first day Intro to Journalism class stuff. This is just lazy journalism pure and simple. And the sad thing is that it's so common that people just think that's how things are done. If a student walked into the college newsroom with something like that I would first laugh at them, then maybe throw an AP Stylebook at them.

If that happened at the newspaper I work for, someone would be on the layoffs list and pushed right to the top.

The first thing an editor should say is "Go back and finish this story."

Then again it IS the Wall Street Journal afterall.