IT is a very specific topic for the average journalist. Information technology is not taught in humanitarian universities , and there is not always time and desire to master them independently. Therefore, there are very few authors writing about IT (writing well) in Minsk. These are Ivan Kovalev, Denis Lavnikevich, the editor of this resource Vadim Stankevich, Anatoly Alizar, who from Minsk edits the Moscow Habrahabr. There are a few more people on other resources - Onlineer (Konstantin Sidorovich), Dev Bae (co-owner, Alexander Yurut), there are free artists, such as Anton Marchenko, eg. It's all. But almost none of them writes here. And new good authors do not appear in KV. I don’t presume to judge why. Instead, I suggest reading the column on IT journalism by Russian blogger Pavel Gorodnitsky. But in Russia the problems are not at all the same as ours.
Note: IT journalism will most often be compared to sports journalism in the text. It is necessary to draw some parallels.
Problem one: no frontman
Vasily Utkin comments on football - everyone knows his voice, and Utkin's columns on Sports.ru a couple of years ago collected 150 thousand clicks. Yuri Dud interviews athletes - if the transcript contains a provocative question about gays, you will immediately understand that this is Dud. Alexander Belenky writes a report from the fight of Floyd Mayweiser: after the texts of this author, people go to the boxing section and practice at least for themselves (and if they came at the right age, then for the sake of competition).
In IT, nothing like that is even close. Eldar Murtazin is an incredibly hardworking person, but his texts do not resonate: the same Utkin is capable of shooting more powerful for three thousand characters than Murtazin - with a dozen reviews. Nikolay Turubar mostly lights up on his Facebook page. Alex Exler became famous for his book about the cat, which was fun to read at age 12. Sergei Vilyanov has a great blog, but again, this is not a very popular story. Hi-Tech from Mail.Ru is a wonderful site in itself, but there are no stars there either.
Attention, the question: where to take an example for writing authors who are now 20-25 years old? Why is anyone surprised that the phrase “the smartphone fits well in the hand, is suitable for both men and women” is repeated in every review? Where should new formats come from if boring trends have been forming for a decade and a half ? A typical example of this devilish stagnation is the word "grandmother": Eldar Murtazin boasted that this word was his invention. Perhaps I missed something, but the neologism "babushkophone" is a dubious reason for pride.
Problem two: authors don't read
Sports journalists are a thousand times more jealous than IT people. The rats who write about football constantly study the materials of their colleagues, and then send pearls to their friends. "Look, this idiot called the coach a mentor and the players pets." "Check it out, what a long sentence - will anyone read it?" "How could you come for a report and write such a sad report?"
Chronic jealousy leads to personal progress. T u do not want to laugh at you, you lay out and write well. You try to be the best and soberly evaluate your materials from the outside: where it is of high quality, and where it could be improved.
What does computer engineering do
In IT, this is not required : as soon as you get into a major publication, you start working for yourself. As a last resort, for the editor (and editors write regularly here too). Your interlocutor is not a reader, but a piece of iron that you are reviewing. At best, your feed consists only of news: you need to be aware of what is happening in order to flash some fact in the nearest text and please the editor. To look into the materials of colleagues? It's too much.
And most importantly: as far as I can tell, it is not customary for IT journalists to read foreign publications, where they approach device reviews much more responsibly and thoroughly than ours.
In sports, everything is completely different: without reading foreign resources, you will be forever second. There are many exciting stories in Russian football, but in Europe there are many times more of them. Whoever wrote the first is the king. Again, this competition is between all Russian sports media: people have to read each other so as not to repeat themselves.
Problem three: weak Russian
Probably, this point should be attributed not to causes, but to consequences, but here it is not so important. Let's go straight to the facts: writing the same type of material every day kills both the brain and vocabulary . There is a glossary for each type of device - it has long been studied even by schoolchildren who read reviews before deciding what to spend their accumulated money on.
IT journalists have been writing for years about how the screen size increases, how the processor overclocks, and how the camera focuses three microseconds faster. An author who changes genres writes much fresher: for example, you want to read this text to the end, even if you definitely don't need the device itself.
For those who write about gadgets, there are only two ways not to dry out the brain. The first is short and biting columns with thundering verbs. For some reason they come out extremely rarely (here's an example ).
The second way is to warm up with app reviews: the software has a bunch of subheadings, so you won't get off with a cliché about “suitable for men and women”. You need to test, look for analogies, insert reasonable criticism and juggle with synonyms. An extremely useful exercise. But for some reason, app reviews are considered a low genre among authoritative IT authors: apparently, gurus imagine themselves in the role of Annie Leibovitz, who was invited to shoot a village wedding.
Problem four: lack of exclusiveness
The eternal budget deficit in sports publications leads to the fact that only the best fly on business trips: first you have to work with dignity in the editorial office, and then work hard abroad, transferring two or three materials a day. A life story: my colleague from Eurosport.ru went to Brazil for the World Cup, spending his own money on it. To recoup the costs, he wrote to three (as far as I remember) publications at once. Everywhere they paid more for exclusives, so by the end of the World Cup, a colleague resembled a man who had been growing bags under his eyes for a whole month: without hellish efforts there would be no insider information.
In the performance of Russian IT-journalists, the exclusive usually sounds like this: "They showed me a new YotaPhone here, it is very cool, but I can't tell you anything yet - I promised." And that's it, the end of the insider.
Reports from exhibitions are reduced to the heading "First Look" (at best - to a video for three to four minutes). Authors do not need to promote any stories and do not need to interview. Write down the abstracts from the presentation, take pictures, walk past the stands, learn something for yourself - and be silent.
However, there are certain exceptions in this regard, but let's be honest: all journalists should strive for leaks. Otherwise, it is not journalism, but blogging and gadget writing.
Problem 5 (and the saddest): a halo over your head
"I gave a commentary on Radio Taganrog - turn it on in 15 minutes, there is a broadcast on the network." “I came on the air of the TV channel with an audience of 150 people - here is the recording.” "I'm going on a press tour." "I am eating a sandwich at the presentation."
The growing ego helps only at the beginning: the IT journalist rushes out of his pants to be invited back to the press tour (called from the radio, called to the TV). Then the moment comes when a person closes everything at once. He has a job in a top publication, is in demand and is famous among PR specialists. The ending of this story is deplorable for the readers, but not for the author: everything ends in friendship with the brand (of course, passionately) and total engagement. A textbook example: today Nokia is good, Samsung is bad, and tomorrow it's the other way around.
In Russian IT journalism, this does not frighten or bother anyone at all. Be friends as much as you want, write as you like, because you are already a king - your name speaks for you, you have already created the illusion of your own importance. What does this lead to? Well, for example, some mobile analysts in all seriousness add the characteristic "leading" to the position.
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