The Value Of Expertise

Following on from the previous post about how the internet has changed journalism, I've thought of another element to it. Mainstream journalists like to sell their wares (stories) as being of greater value because they are trained. The problem is that journalists, like politicians are not specialists in anything other than furthering their own careers.

They need advice on subjects as and when they arise from real experts. The problem is that many "real experts"  who give that advice are nothing more than special interest employees paid to seed stories with talking points.

Nobody can expect anyone to be an expert on everything, journalists, like politicians can be faced with a bewildering array of subjects as they come up. They need people to research and advise them. Often due to time restraints it's easy just to reprint some advice or comments without checking if it makes sense, or has been debunked as lobbying bullshit.

Tech journalists know about Microsoft, Nokia, and have some vague knowledge on the background history of both companies, all supplied helpfully by Microsoft and Nokia employees, perhaps disguised as employees of other firms. When the news breaks that Nokia have entered a partnership with Microsoft to put Windows Phone 7 at the heart of there smartphone range, they have to investigate the deal. They know the current CEO Mr Elop is a former Microsoft employee but nobody thinks to question if there are insider trading questions to be asked. Not only that, but he holds no shares in Nokia, and is the 7th largest shareholder in Microsoft. His self interest is in making sure Microsoft wins at any cost.

They see the PR being sent informing them of this bright new dawn that will shake up the smartphone market, and whether or not they believe it, their jobs are reliant on them writing pieces which pass muster by their editors, which means it is filtered through the "what's financially important to our organisation". If Microsoft are a major sponsor, they expect favourable articles.
Even taking the bias aside, on a purely knowledge based analysis, who do you trust to give a more accurate viewpoint?

• A journalist who's heard on the news wires of a deal and starts poking around the PR, or someone directly connected to the story?
• A Microsoft employee who wants the chance to work with great quality hardware and sees a genuine bright new future with Nokia?
• A Microsoft shareholder who sees the Nokia deal as a killer blow in taking out a competitor, thereby increasing their own share prices?
• A Nokia employee who is now facing the prospect of being unemployed since Maemo / MeeGo / QT are uncertain or having to learn and work in Microsoft technology like Silverlight?
• A Nokia shareholder who is furious that Microsoft have yet again managed to get one of their own into the top of a competitor to kill it, following a pattern from other Microsoft partners like Yahoo?
• An avid follower of smartphones and smartphone OS's who sees WP7 as the Next (of) Kin?

All of these people may have their own agenda on the story, but they do have some specialist insight that journalists will never have.

How many times do we complain that some political party or politicians are trying to introduce some laws covering technology that are completely unworkable and show the people promoting and suggesting them are completely clueless on what they're talking about? They get their aggregated knowledge from advisers, who all come from special interests with their own agenda, and never let facts or reality get in the way.

It does not help when the political system favours loyalty to the leader over competence. Where politicians only experienced in fooling the electorate are suddenly deemed fit to be put in charge of the nations education service. They may only be there for a year while the nations children see no new benefits and the politician decides to rearrange the deck chairs just for the sake of short term self interest in showing that they are in fact "doing something". Often this is detrimental, and accumulating and compounding long term problems, which is the opposite of what they're supposed to be getting paid to do.

We see it time and time again, in specialist circles the people with real knowledge disect and refute various assertions that are made but to no avail. As I said in the previous post, reputation is king. If you prostitute yourself as a talking head, you are part of the problem.

Finding solutions to things is difficult, but the first immovable stone in building that foundation is recognising the facts for what they are, no matter what they are. From there we can debate solutions to problems in a more honest way.

We elect our politicians (in theory) to have the wisdom to dissect all of these reports and come to conclusions that benefit the people. We do this because we shouldn't have to do all the reading of background information, dig around into how many companies individuals have ruined in the past etc. The same applies to journalists. We (in theory) expect mainstream journalists to do the research into stories, check out the background of their sources, and check the claims they're being told are facts. When known bullshit artists spewing debunked assertions are constantly quoted as credible sources, the credibility of the journalist citing them goes down the tubes. So does the reputation of their employer.

As I said before, reputation is king.

You have to also factor in the motivations for what they do. When someone is paid to say something, is it their own opinions? Or are they shaped to ensure acceptance and therefore ensuring their pay cheque arrives on time? When someone blogs on their own time for no other reason than to share their opinions and ideas on a subject they are passionate about their views will often be much more knowledgeable and valid.