Are Reporters Too Negative? Well, It Depends

These days, when I ask sources in Silicon Valley what I should write about, I get some version of: “The big story is really how great everything is going.”

At that I roll my eyes. As a journalist, I’m wired to believe that the hype isn’t always as it appears. But lately I’ve been thinking more about the negative consequences of—well, being so negative. 

Because it’s also true that these positive tech people—very often flush with funds from their latest SPAC exit—have a point. Business is booming across small and big tech companies alike, as Snap’s quarterly earnings on Thursday showed and as next week’s earnings from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and others will likely confirm. Valuations are through the roof. But, frankly, so are profits and revenues. 

We’ve hit a point in the cycle where the growth numbers for many tech companies are truly staggering because most are really offering services that people want and most really deliver value. That growth is part of the tech story. And those stories should be told. 

But how do you balance that with the long litany of challenges this growth poses? There is the seemingly intractable problem of balancing free speech with the reality that the turbospread of misinformation online can cause tragic harm; the widening gap that technology is creating between those who are able to use tech to accelerate their education, careers and wealth and those who are not; the unknown consequences new technologies may have for our privacy, health and freedom, which are seemingly impossible to anticipate.

These are questions all journalists should think about. And yet I feel that not enough do, though we know our role is to challenge what the powerful are saying and doing. 

But there is one big problem with going entirely in the negative direction: trust. As journalists, our currency is our credibility with readers. If we don’t do the work to really understand and explain what is working in an industry, as well as what is not, readers rightly wonder if we really understand what we are covering, and if not, why they should listen to us. 

Author Michael Wolff made this point on CNN last week in his surprise attack on host Brian Stelter. It’s worth a watch. 

I’d be lying if I said I knew exactly how to strike the right balance. And that keeps me up at night. Because this moment for the tech industry, with such highs and lows, calls for intense skepticism as well as intense smarts. We should give readers both.