08.25.20
Gemini version available ♊︎Criteria for Stories Techrights Focuses On
Too much of the media is sadly full of crap and Public Relations (P.R.) because nowadays that’s where the money is
Summary: A quick explanation of how we decide whether to focus on some particular topic or merely post links on the subject (this distinction is typically based on the need/s)
FINDING topics to cover isn’t hard. The hard part is making available enough time to cover as many of them as possible. Thankfully, Techrights is run by a bunch of us (volunteers; nobody gets paid), so there’s high capacity to research, produce, publish.
Looking at various GNU/Linux news sites or general news sites which habitually cover GNU/Linux, we’re accustomed to seeing stories like “Linux Mint [version here] released” or “Review of [Free software]” and we prefer the latter because it’s a lot more original. For the former kind of stories, one can just link to the original, which is both informative and worth the traffic (all of it, no ads and other nonsense like clickbait). We believe that to put the former kind in our Daily Links might be enough. There’s not much to say or to add when there’s a release of some software.
“Correcting falsehoods is a very high priority here; we’re up against a well funded P.R. “industry” — whose goal is generally to mislead the public or “shape perception” as they themselves put it.”There are certain types of stories that merit a response, either because they perpetuate a falsehood or are awfully incomplete. If the reactionary (correctional) angle is not covered elsewhere already, then we typically do a story or several. We also prefer to cover topics that are suppressed like the European Patent Office (EPO) scandals under António Campinos and Benoît Battistelli. If nobody else is willing to cover that, we will.
The rule of thumb is, if there’s something to say and it was already said, then we can link to that. If it’s missing, we need to write something. Correcting falsehoods is a very high priority here; we’re up against a well funded P.R. “industry” — whose goal is generally to mislead the public or “shape perception” as they themselves put it.
Let’s be clear: we don’t claim to be perfect (or try to patrionise the corporate media collectively). But as more people are becoming aware, corporate media is full of issues as this media is increasingly owned by oligarchs whose sole interest is misleading the public, not informing the public. It’s worse than just P.R.; it’s an occupation. It is like buying off one’s oversight/regulators. If we allow this to carry on, we basically permit reality distortion to work, e.g. painting back doors as a desirable, Linux as “communism” and Linux Foundation as anything other than a corporate front group. █
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