Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

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>What a puff piece. I don't know if "TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022" is some sort of Forbes-stye pay to play or what, but FFS if you have an opportunity to talk to someone like Jassy, get to the heart of issues like antitrust, and dig deeper on claims

The issue is that CEOs don't have to talk to journalists. Therefore, for journalists to have access to interview the CEO, the CEO has to cooperate.

How do you get CEOs to say "yes" to your interview requests and not ignore you? By building a reputation of not running negative hit pieces and ambushing interviewees with uncomfortable questions. (Authors Walter Isaacson and Steven Levy would be an example of "friendly" interviewers. Kara Swisher would not.)

So applying that to this thread's article, we see that the author John Simons had interviews with CEOs Tim Cook (Apple), David Solomon (Goldman Sachs), and Michael Dell (Dell): https://time.com/author/john-simons/

Those are all articles that paint the subjects in a good light. In other words, John Simons would have never been granted an interview with Andy Jassy at all if he was going to ask the tough questions you want him to ask. It's a "puff piece" due to the rules of engagement so-to-speak.

Are you saying that, by the nature of media having to be large corporations, they need to protect other large corporations and therefore paint an incorrect view of the world?

My sole question is, how have they built such large audiences. Do people enjoy hearing corporate-loving stories? Or do people rely on well-designed documentaries, articles and websites to assess the accuracy of the contents, betting everything on the production value? Or are those newspapers surfing on ancient glory and wearing off some reputation? But if so, what builds a reputation, and which newspapers are currently building a reputation by having quite-accurate content?

>Are you saying that, by the nature of media having to be large corporations, they need to protect other large corporations and therefore paint an incorrect view of the world?

No, I'm not saying that at all. Media can run negative stories. I was explaining why _this_ particular story of this thread doesn't have the hard-hitting questions the gp was asking for. It's because the journalist was granted an interview by the CEO. The reality is that CEOs must volunteer themselves to be interviewed. And human nature dictates that they will not volunteer to be interrogated with uncomfortable questions.

>Do people enjoy hearing corporate-loving stories?

Readers also want to read corporate-hating stories ... but the CEO(s) will then have to be referred to in the 3rd person in that type of story instead of being asked questions in a 1-on-1 interview format. That's just the reality of how different types of stories are created. Understandably, CEOs don't like to cooperate when it's a hostile story.

In rare cases, a notable person will sometimes volunteer themselves to be interviewed with "tough questions" ... such as disgraced bicyclist Lance Armstrong being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. This is usually perceived as a public relations redemption tour to start rehabilitating their image.

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