“Both journalists and technology executives are guilty of thinking that Twitter is more important than it is,” Ms. Lessey said. “Technology executives take journalists’ tweets seriously on a number of issues – but at the same time it’s hard to have any professional relationship with someone who attacks you all day.”
I’m not sure if Ms. Leslie is always balanced. Silicon Valley’s ideology is sometimes at odds with its profits. And the scope and power of the industry is unparalleled.
Ms. Leslie also said that journalists and technology giants are stuck with each other at this point. Top executives in Silicon Valley have replaced the opposition’s news networks, led by influential Facebook board member Mark Andresen, and have lived up to their fantasies of direct interest to their users and investors. But when it comes to interacting with their own employees, they have not been able to create a platform that allows them to be more than just independent news outlets, which is less than the public.
Andresen Horowitz’s Andresen Venture Capital Company has invested in the social media platform Club House and has only seen him enter an undisclosed international venue for multi-level marketing discussions. The tech industry has launched a media platform for the future in a discussion of the neuroscience section of the news that they no longer need journalists. Margit Wenmachs, head of marketing and content at the company, told me in a message on Meta’s!
Mr. Zuckerberg knows that he cannot be completely independent from the mainstream media. In an interview with only four broadcasters last week, an aide said that he had quietly covered more than a dozen major news outlets, including The New York Times, before the big “meta” announcement.
The technology giants did not dry up under the control of the news media. Of course, to cover these companies, Ms. Lessey said, it requires some kind of “cracked screen.” Technology companies’ businesses (in the case of Facebook, advertising) have not been affected by the exposure so far and the government’s investigation. When journalists mocked Mr. Zuckerberg’s meters, the company’s stock grew.
And the conflict between the media and the technology industry is becoming more and more controversial. We may not all have the next epidemic in Hawaii with Mr. Zuckerberg, but we will probably live with him for a long time.