Who wants a thread about an underscrutinized element of tech journalism that I think is key to understanding this overhyped industry slugfest? I know you don’t, but I’m going to post it anyway.

I was a tech reporter in that weird era between the two dotcom booms, but it was also the era when the medium we worked in was starting to *seriously* evolve to digital. And there was a huge gulf in many cases between the reporters who were equipped to be business journalists...

...and those of us who were quick to understand digital, chase trends, and basically adapt well to the new medium. I was *definitely* in the latter camp. I don’t think I was a bad reporter, but I did not have the expertise or background to truly scrutinize the industry.

A lot of us who were in that group of (mostly very young) reporters are 1) still in the industry, but not as journalists, and 2) now widely regard our coverage as having been too friendly and without adequate pushback and big-picture scrutiny.

But we were the ones getting the traffic and attention, and often writing for new, digitally-native outlets as older ones scrambled to catch up and adapt to digital publishing as well as to a new crop of companies that were rapidly gaining relevance.

And yeah, the companies we covered were used to *much* friendlier coverage than they’re getting now. I do think the tech press has tried to course-correct too much, to put it lightly.

Basically, tech reporting had two essential skillsets and they weren’t being merged at most publications. Here’s an example...

Some of my senior colleagues had fantastic reporting chops but dismissed Facebook as a novelty that wasn’t going to last. I could write deep analyses of Facebook’s product strategy but couldn’t do investigative reporting to save my life.

And the more I think about it, the more I think we *still* don’t have that merger of skillsets, and that’s what is at the core of the actual problem. 15 years ago a crop of young, product-centric reporters were succeeding at what would now be considered softball journalism.

But on the flip side, I read way too many tough-on-tech stories and I’m like, I work in this industry. I criticize this industry. It needs to be held accountable. But, take today: Is a trend piece elevating middle-management reactionaries into Bond villains the way to do it?

I know it’s cool to write about billionaires who inject themselves with the blood of teenagers to stay young, but the best tech reporting I read these days — I think of @CaseyNewton’s work on the lives of content moderators — is about the ordinary people in the industry.

And Casey, on that note, is one tech reporter who really seems to have a foot in both camps of understanding how the industry works and knowing how to cover it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he produces stuff that’s so meaningful.

And here’s a secret: PEOPLE WHO WORK IN TECH LIKE THOSE STORIES. Many see depressing stuff going on at their employers and feel powerless to say anything about it. They do not hate the media — they value it. But, ya know, that doesn’t make for a fun WWE-worthy Clubhouse brawl.

Anyway. I’ll stop now. But I think that skills gulf in the early TechCrunch/VentureBeat/etc. era isn’t something that gets talked about enough in This Discourse. Could we have done something about it? Maybe. But either way, it led to where we are now. Here’s a raccoon.

(One more thing. Those of us in the “digital native” tech reporter cohort 10-15 years ago were also operating under high-volume, attention-deficit conditions. There are so many stories I wish I’d followed up on and dug into more deeply now, but coverage was very one-and-done.)