Covering Silicon Valley is perilous and fraught with issues

Adrienne LaFrance writes for Nieman Reports about the issues covering tech companies in Silicon Valley.

LaFrance writes, “The first time I visited Facebook’s office in Washington, D.C., I was asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement. I didn’t.

“Then there was the time I got through an entire interview with a product manager at Apple, only to be told, after the fact, that it was presumed to be on background. ‘Everyone knows this is how we do things,’ a spokesman explained apologetically. Nope.

“Just before Christmas a couple years ago, HP sent me a bright pink laptop I’d never asked for. I sent it back.

“I’ve been offered iPhones, international plane tickets, and more gadgets than I can count. ‘Can also send over a draft press release and a big ol’ bottle of wine for sitting through my email ;),’ one PR person wrote in March.

“This is what it’s like to be a technology reporter in 2016. Freebies are everywhere, but real access is scant. Powerful companies like Facebook and Google are major distributors of journalistic work, meaning newsrooms increasingly rely on tech giants to reach readers, a relationship that’s awkward at best and potentially disastrous at worst.”

Read more here.