Has business press lost touch with the tech industry?
A new report by ITDatabase that examines tech coverage over the last six months from eight top business news publications raises some questions, in particular: Does the business press factor companies' revenue and profits into their tech editorial agenda?
The report shows that Apple and Google dominate, while Twitter and Facebook are far more discussed in the business press than Intel, Dell, IBM, or even HP (the largest tech company in the world).
The eight publications surveyed are: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, BusinessWeek, The Economist, Financial Times, and USA Today. Over a period of six months, ITDatabase measured coverage by the number of times a tech company was mentioned in print and online in these publications, including blogs such as All Things Digital, which is affiliated with the Journal. (Disclosure: I am an adviser to ITDatabase.)
Enterprise IT is woefully underrepresented, despite being the cash-cow in the industry. "In the overall editorial agenda," the report says, "enterprise IT is treated like consumer tech's snaggletoothed twin. It barely even makes the family photo."
Oracle ($22 billion in revenue, $5 billion in profits) only cracks the top 10 companies by coverage for one of the eight publications examined: Fortune. Cisco ($40 billion in revenue, $8 billion in profits) didn't make it on anyone's top 10 list. IBM ($100 billion in revenue, $12 billion in profits) wasn't even in The New York Times' top 20, and was No. 19 for The Wall Street Journal.
These are tech vendors with billions in profits that are largely ignored by business press, and there are tech categories with enormous worldwide revenue (enterprise categories in particular like storage, virtualization, network infrastructure) that are barely even acknowledged.
The collective coverage of the tech industry also appears to overlook the relative importance of major manufacturers in Japan, South Korea, and China.
As the report points out, there are of course some outstanding individual tech authors in the business press. And in fact, Twitter and Facebook play heavily into the way they communicate with their readers. But collectively, has the business press lost touch with the tech industry?
And is it reasonable to expect that tech categories (no matter how dry they might be) receive attention proportionate to the revenue they are driving? Or is biz press tech coverage about entertainment?
Readers are always interested in the latest and greatest and tend to flock to articles about the brands that they like best (Apple and Google), or dislike most. Similarly, people just love to read about things that go wrong, or when big companies screw up.
What to write about is a daily struggle not just for the business press, but for tech writers and bloggers too. And some large companies choose to communicate to the media mostly via press releases, which tend to make for not too interesting news.
Dave Rosenberg dishes up "Software, Interrupted" with nearly 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to multiple start-up IPOs to open-source enterprise software companies. He is co-founder of MuleSource and currently serves as the general manager of Hardy Way. He is an adviser to Canonical, IT Database, Puppet Labs, Riptano, and SOBA Labs. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can contact Dave via e-mail at softwareinterrupted@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @dr138. 
If it's investor performance (WSJ), then profitability and equity/bond returns matter.
If it's just general business writing for industries and entrepreneurs, then last quarter's profits and stock gains matter less than innovative ideas that have future growth potential.
If it's consumer tech (CNET), then profitability/revenue/stock growth doesn't mean a thing (except as it generally follows successful products). For some reason, probably because they want affirmation that they made the right choice, people like to mix a product with its companies success.
While they should be correlated, one is not the other. When I buy a tv, I want the best tv. LG's sales are not an argument that my tv is the best--both may be true, or one, or neither. My tv is however good it is, and an extra billion in profit won't help me in the least if it's a crappy tv. Likewise, finding out that nobody else bought my tv won't take away from it if it has stellar picture.
Whenever I see stupid Xbox/Playstation arguments whining about how many units were sold last month vs all time, it makes me cringe. Ditto for PC's market share vs Apple's stock last year. Becoming a cheerleader for some brand's monetary performance or market share makes you the biggest sheep of all, because you're using someone else's wallet to justify the thing you spent money on, but has no better performance because of it.
CNET should be first and foremost about the merits of the products themselves. It should follow that a great product has great sales, profits, market share, and stock performance, but the reverse doesn't hold: not one of those things will make my phone better--they're effects, not causes, and should never be criteria for evaluating a product here.
Shouldn't post while drinking.
It has been the case for at least ten years. Anyone who can thoughtfully write about the Oracle RDBMS, Microsoft SQL Server, etc., would make a lot more money being a DBA or project manager than being a tech journalist.
Alas, it might not made with the bling-bling factor consumer tech needed to reach out for the larger crowds who use their own money and decide themselves which to buy.
The press lives in their own little bubble universe, an alterate reality where NY is still the center of the universe, image matters more than substance, and connections matter more than talent. It is a world where Apple press conferences and Google crapware outweigh true productivity applications and no product is relevant unless it comes with an Apple logo (that is the gear *they* use) or wrapped in endless banner ads. Let's be honest: the press is in the business of selling ads so they understand Google; understanding HTC or Samsung or even Dell or HP requires a stretch of the imagination those foks are simply too lazy to bother with; they would rather sit around and collect press releases to quote or republish than actually bother to research the markets they are supposed to be covering.
Of course, since most of them are tied to the dying treepulp industries, their relevance is steadily fading on a daily basis and pretty soon we'll be rid of them once and for all.
The mainstream press is dying.
Good riddance: they've outlived their usefullness; we just need to acknowledge it and stop paying them any attention.
There's nothing (meaningful) to see there; its time to move along... move along...
those who can, create. those who can't, write ;-)
There is also some truth to the complexity of enterprise IT being difficult to write about in any quality detail - "Cloud Computing" being the latest useless term.
A cursory glance at today's techmeme shows what I'm talking about: "Apple airs an iPad ad" , "Ad-blocking hurts the sites you love", "Apple's stance on cookie cutter apps" -- all leading stories from some of the top indie tech blogs.
Maybe the MSM is following their lead. Depressing.
- by dejardine March 8, 2010 10:46 AM PST
- I think that its about what is newsworthy. To consumers, this is something they can relate to. Can a consumer relate to an Oracle database or an iPad. Enterprise tech is not sexy, too complicated for the average folk and too niche.
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- by TravisVan March 8, 2010 11:59 AM PST
- Business press readers by definition are more interested in revenues and financial performance. Enterprise tech really is very challenging to write about in a way that's accessible to consumers, as you note. There seems to be a conflict between entertaining readers and covering the tech industry in a balanced way. The former currently seems to be much more the focus than the latter for biz press in their coverage of tech.
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