Dan Lyons reveals the dirty truth of today’s media and the people who work in the industry:
I’ve… spent the past few years writing “articles” that were less and less interesting — they were basically just SEO chum thrown out onto the internet in hopes of catching traffic.
“Articles” is another way of saying “Everything I ever wrote about Apple before being able to escape to a corporate gig.” Why? Because Lyons was only able to generate traffic to websites when he published weird, misleading columns about the company.
Bashing Apple was the only way Lyons could make it in the publishing world. Can you recall anything he’s written that didn’t involved Apple? Me neither.
Now that he’s no longer in that industry, Lyons can tell us what he was actually doing — writing for traffic, not truth.
Bad on Lyons for pumping out not-sincere perspectives on Apple all those years. Good for Lyons, realizing that his previous career sucked, and that he’s in a position to do something else. And yet…
Well, here’s the next thing he’s pursuing:
But in the last year or so, many have started finding work as journalists inside companies. That new appetite for “corporate journalism” makes it easier than ever for journalists to leave their posts. Intel, IBM, GE, Oracle, and countless others have hired reporters. Some companies have a blogger or two; others are building full-fledged news organizations.
He goes on to write:
The result is that these days a lot of good journalism is being committed outside the walls of traditional media companies. As my friend Kevin Maney, a longtime tech columnist at USA Today who bailed out of mainstream media a few years ago, has written, “Traditional media is increasingly a bad place for a good journalist to work.”
Note that, unlike Lyons, Kevin Maney is not saying he’s a journalist. Which means Lyons is either confused as to what his job really is, or he is — once again — misleading readers.
“Corporate journalism” isn’t journalism: It’s public relations (telling the world what you’d like it to believe) or corporate communications (telling your workforce what’s what, rah rah).
Corporations hire former journalists — and have for years, this isn’t a new phenomenon — because they know how to communicate: Planning, composing, propagating messages. It’s a skill that is under-appreciated by most, but necessary as it becomes clear that executives and their support staffs aren’t masters of written English.
And, of course, journalists take these jobs because they need real wages and benefits. Amen.
But do not believe someone who tells you that he or she is a “corporate journalist.” He or she will be implying that he or she is something he or she is not. He or she will always be a mouthpiece of a company which ultimately is trying to sell you something.
They’re not evil. But they are marketers. Understand that, question it, and you’ll be fine… especially if you end up reading Lyon’s work in the future.
AuliaSays 