a few years ago the New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage. Instead of covering the industry with a business press lens or a consumer lens they started covering it with a very tough investigative lens — highly oppositional at all times and occasionally unfair. Almost never curious about technology or in awe of progress and potential. This was a very deliberate top-down decision. They decided tech was a major power center that needed scrutiny and needed to be taken down a peg, and this style of coverage became very widespread and prominent in the industry.
From journalist Kelsey Piper on Twitter in response:
People might think Matt is overstating this but I literally heard it from NYT reporters at the time. There was a top-down decision that tech could not be covered positively, even when there was a true, newsworthy and positive story. I'd never heard anything like it.
It's shocking to me that the NYTimes would make such an editorial decision, and it's disappointing to hear this about one of the newspapers that I trust the most. Certainly there are many aspects of the tech sector that ought to be criticized and exposed to the public, but I don't think it's good for truth-seeking to take an editorial stance that tech should generally be covered negatively.