Let’s stop covering everything about Zuckerberg, Altman and Musk

Public relations executive Ed Zitron argues that the business media is doing a disserve to society by covering everything it can about technology executives Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

Zitron writes, “The reason that Elon Musk is able to lie and get away with it is that a far-too-large chunk of the press seems dedicated to swallowing every single one of them. No amount of followup journalism will ever counterbalance the automatic stenography as his events take place — the assumption being, I assume, that readers “want this” — nor will it help when the majority of articles summarizing what happened blandly repeat exactly what promises Musk has made without calling them out as outright lies.

And no, it doesn’t really help to bury a statement or two in there about how Musk has “yet to deliver.”  The story should start with the fact he’s a liar and end with the new lies he’s telling.

The media needs to start folding its arms and refusing to accept the terms that these people set. Every single article about OpenAI should include something about the brittleness of its business, and about the many, many half-truths of Sam Altman — yet more often than not these pieces feel like they simply accept that whatever he’s saying is both reasonable and accurate. The same goes for Musk, or Zuckerberg, or Pichai, or Nadella. All of these men have grown rich and powerful off the back of a lack of pushback by the media.”

Read more here.