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nfotxnI'm not a fan of most indie Internet media. Although big-media certainly has it's problems, the trend of brand-specific Internet news alarms me. Usually focusing on technology and written by IT professionals these sites are indispensable to hobbyists and professionals alike who need to keep up on recent events at unheard of speed. Which is great, but what people need to realize is that most of writers and editors of these sights don't understand media bias and the dissemination of mis-information. The sort of bias that comes out of these sites is obvious, even to the those unversed in the topic.
There's lots of other branded news sites in nearly every field from technology to fitness but the focus will be on technology sites. I'd like to point out some dubious sites like /. or kuro5hin. They have the redeemable features of promoting open discussion on the topics at hand, albeit with a rather biased moderating staff (their readers and writers), and publishing the writing of their readers through moderation. Slashdot has that much right, allowing editors to decide what deserves to be communicated to thousands, if not millions, of people a day. Although the idea of a completely user moderated new site is intriguing in practice kuro5hin only seems to moderate the extremist views into front-page publication. Nice experiment, poor result.
One exemplary site is The Activewin Network. Essentially a word-for-word summary of re-published Microsoft press releases marauding as reputable news on the Windows platform. Now, personally, software platform to me is about as important as the make of car I'd drive. I have a preference, but generally a car is going to get you places without stalling or exploding too often. The sort of religious zeal in their reporting is appalling, as if MS could do no wrong. Now, to defend my own bias or at least acknowledge it, I have to admit I'm not a fan of many of their products. But I've also used them for a good decade!
Another incident involves imagine media, who is in pending legal action with nintendo over copyright issues regarding the pokémontm trademark. As retaliation, they've censored news regarding nintendo from their Dailyradar.com news site. This is a media company that cites it's X-box magazine as both "100% Independent" and "100% Official". Who's confused? It's clear people mis-conceive "independent" and "official" as reputable. But on the Internet especially that's not the case, in fact usually quite the opposite. This company is practicing active media censorship which is a breach of trust with the reader. I'll probably think twice about buying their magazines now and never read their Internet news sites.
There's lots of other branded news sites in nearly every field from technology to fitness but the focus will be on technology sites. I'd like to point out some dubious sites like /. or kuro5hin. They have the redeemable features of promoting open discussion on the topics at hand, albeit with a rather biased moderating staff (their readers and writers), and publishing the writing of their readers through moderation. Slashdot has that much right, allowing editors to decide what deserves to be communicated to thousands, if not millions, of people a day. Although the idea of a completely user moderated new site is intriguing in practice kuro5hin only seems to moderate the extremist views into front-page publication. Nice experiment, poor result.
One exemplary site is The Activewin Network. Essentially a word-for-word summary of re-published Microsoft press releases marauding as reputable news on the Windows platform. Now, personally, software platform to me is about as important as the make of car I'd drive. I have a preference, but generally a car is going to get you places without stalling or exploding too often. The sort of religious zeal in their reporting is appalling, as if MS could do no wrong. Now, to defend my own bias or at least acknowledge it, I have to admit I'm not a fan of many of their products. But I've also used them for a good decade!
Another incident involves imagine media, who is in pending legal action with nintendo over copyright issues regarding the pokémontm trademark. As retaliation, they've censored news regarding nintendo from their Dailyradar.com news site. This is a media company that cites it's X-box magazine as both "100% Independent" and "100% Official". Who's confused? It's clear people mis-conceive "independent" and "official" as reputable. But on the Internet especially that's not the case, in fact usually quite the opposite. This company is practicing active media censorship which is a breach of trust with the reader. I'll probably think twice about buying their magazines now and never read their Internet news sites.
