Boastfully ignorant reporters [Was: Zergo can do secure TTPs]

[T Bruce Tober]

In message <Pine.LNX.3.96.980715084524.1601H-100000@arpad.thegreen.priva
te>, Jeffrey Goldberg <J.Goldberg@Cranfield.ac.uk> writes
>On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, John Young wrote:
>
>of the concepts.  In many cases they actually do, but still boast of
>ignorance as a hook to the audience.

There is some reason to that madness. The general public - Joe Bloggs
and Co, think computer thingies are as esoteric or arcane as lawyer and
accountant and medical thingies. When the story teller tells them at the
start that he is not a techie, Joe B translates that to mean, "Oh good,
there won't be any computerese, technical jargon I won't understand." I
know it works, I've used it myself, very successfully, as both a
journalist covering IT and as a computer consultant in the late '80s. My
clients liked it that I spoke that which in yankland passes for the
Queen's English rather than Byte Magazine talk. 

It didn't mean I knew not what I was talking about, for I'd done (and
still do do) the research and learning. But it did mean I spoke their
language.

And that's what reporters, especially in the media targeted at a general
audience is expected to do by that audience.

As several persons here are well aware, when I research an article on a
technical subject, I usually have between 5 and 20 Mb of research
material reviewed, read, collected, collated and referred to.

Sorry to be off topic, but this subject seems to be of sufficient
interest that no one is yet complaining as far as I've seen.

tbt -- 

-- 
|Bruce Tober, <octobersdad@reporters.net>, <http://www.crecon.demon.co.uk>   |
|Birmingham, UK, EU +44-121-242-3832 Freelance PhotoJournalist - IT, Arts,   |
|       Business, etc. Also website content consultancy and development.     |