Tech reporters and the swag from Google

Jeff Saginor of The American Prospect writes about the free gifts that Google gives away at its annual tech conference to reporters who cover the company.

Saginor writes, “But Google isn’t really courting developers with events such as this; it’s courting the media. It wants its latest innovations blasted across the Internet’s echo chambers. So this year at I/O, Google upped the ante, giving everyone in attendance a Chromebook Pixel — a laptop running Google’s own operating system, retailing for $1,299. It’s the equivalent of Apple handing everyone a MacBook Pro on the way out the door. It made headlines across the web. And it’s everything that’s wrong with tech reporting.

“Technology events are not giveaways for Oprah’s favorite things—journalists don’t get to go home with bags full of expensive toys and then pretend to critically cover the companies that bribe them. As James Temple explains in The San Francisco Chronicle, tech writers will ‘tell you they’re routinely offered pricey gift baskets and all manner of smart phones, software, tablets and computers, often with no obligation to return or write about them.’ And last year, Brad Stone of Businessweek wrote that reporters at a Spotify launch party in San Francisco were treated to $300 bottles of tequila as parting gifts. It happens constantly. Of course most reporters don’t accept the gifts. But the casual relationship undermines the nature of serious technology reporting.

“Yes, for the most part gadgets are fun and cool and what’s the harm? But Google—for instance—has a long history of invasive advertising practices that get into some very murky questions regarding our civil liberties. By assuming that the bloggers and journalists in attendance would accept such a lavish gift, Google appears deeply cynical. And the media comes off as profoundly clueless.”

Read more here.