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by abrahamepton 2411 days ago
I've worked at Google and a newspaper (Chicago Tribune). I can guarantee you that a room full of Google SWEs could not start producing an edition of the Trib one day later, though they could absolutely put words into articles.

There's so much more that I want to say to you but I'll leave it there. You are wildly incorrect.

1 comments

+1 as a current member of a Big Tech product org and a trained journalist.

The basic information gathering skills of a junior reporter would be completely foreign to most engineers. These are real skills like navigating a FOIA request or pulling financial information from public filings. Soft skills like effective interviewing, structuring an article, translating technical topics to non-technical audiences, writing good headlines.

If your idea of a functional newsroom is a wordpress instance, sure, but the hubris here is cringeworthy and demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of the work that goes into good reporting.