A malta do Gizmodo pregou umas partidas no Consumer Electronics Show (CES) de 2008.
Um deles foi banido do evento e escrevem muito acertadamente: But when I see some fellow press damning us for the joke, I feel sorry for them: When did journalists become the protectors of corporations? When did this industry, defined by pranksters like Woz, get so serious and in-the-pocket of big business? This is totally pathetic.
Consumer electronics tech journalism is very tricky. Those who strictly cover commercial CE depend on a powerful handful of companies for the very lifeblood of their content. That's a dangerous position. A "favor" by a company can turn into the laziest kind of "scoop" imaginable, a scrap from the dinner table for the dogs of journalism. And every gadget journalist has wrestled with his conscience as he gains more access and becomes inseparable from the industry and depends on more and more of these scoops.
But bloggers and trade journalists, so desperate for a seat at the table with big mainstream publications have it completely backwards: You don't get more access by selling out for press credentials first chance you get, kowtowing to corporations and tradeshows and playing nice; you earn your respect by fact finding, reporting, having untouchable integrity, provocative coverage and gaining readers through your reputation for those things. Our prank pays homage to the notion of independence and independent reporting. And no matter how much access the companies give us, we won't ever stop being irreverent. That's what this prank was about and what the press should understand.
[Continua e vale a pena ler como certas marcas não se importaram com a coisa. Mais:]
Every tech journalist has to decide whether or not he's writing for companies or for readers. When they start writing for the companies, covering all their press releases and regurgitating marketing jargon, you do no one any favors (not even the companies, which already hire press release machines).
Há uns anos, um inglês e dos melhores jornalistas de novas tecnologias - na minha opinião, claro - foi convidado para uma apresentação de um novo equipamento. A máquina apresentada era uma maravilha, entre Hz e Gbytes, com gráficos estupendos.
Ele pediu para verificar a cablagem por detrás do ecrã e viu que estava ligada a uma outra máquina, essa sim potente e que podia debitar aqueles gráficos todos. Escreveu o que tinha visto e eu nunca me esqueci desta história (até a imitei mas sem o mesmo sucesso :)).
Já o encontrei pessoalmente em várias ocasiões, tanto organizadas por empresas como institucionais (a cimeira sobre a estratégia de Lisboa, há uns anos, por exemplo, quando ambos fizemos perguntas incómodas e nenhum de nós desligou ecrãs).
Nestes casos, tecnologia rima com nostalgia mas também com ética. Por isso a história do Gizmodo é valiosa.
