Who Cares What "IT" Is?

Patrick McNair
January 25, 2001

About a week and a half ago I was driving into Denver and talk radio was my mom's choice of listening. The topic of the day was "IT" or "Ginger" - a gadget which is being touted as something that will be revolutionary. After seeing "Ginger," Jeff Bezos (of Amazon.com) and Steve Jobs (of Apple Computer) were ecstatic about the gadget's possibilities. Last Friday, Dean Kamen, the inventor behind "IT," broke his silence to say that Jobs' and Bezos' remarks were taken out of context, and that his new invention will not be the "earth-shattering" miracle that the hype suggested. But ignore all that for a moment; what I'm interested in is the fact that in discussing "IT" for nearly a week, no one actually knew what "IT" was (and they still don't).

"IT" might be a personal transport, or group transport, or a pocket computer that can do all the neat things that cell phones already do. "IT" might not be any of those things. I personally hoped that "IT" was the best get rich quick scheme ever.

Though I dislike the idea of creating a buzz around something that doesn't necessarily exist yet (the fault of an unauthorized leak), my real issue here is with the media who blew the story up far beyond its true newsworthiness. When does it become more important to report truth and make sure that the whole story is told than just to be the first person in the news cycle to 'break' a story? Moreover, how long will it be until someone abuses the ever accelerating news cycle by announcing a "miracle technology" and amassing investments before it exists or before anyone even understands the invention? It might not be quite that simple, but with the market now seemingly reacting in real-time to market analysts' reactions to the market, I don't see how a major abuse of the accelerated news cycle can be far off. Despite the problems of incomplete information, wild speculation and the need to continually break new stories to beat the accelerated news cycle, nobody in the mass media seems to care about journalistic integrity amidst the ratings race. I might watch television news if I trusted it more.

From the horse-race style presidential coverage, which predicted states going one way before the polls closed, to stories about things that don't exist, the mass media in this country is out of control. I hoped that "IT" was a get-rich-quick scheme because of the fact that news would be shown in such a literal way to be just another advertising dupe. Everyone gets in a huff when HMOs are run for profit, but nobody seems to care that news programs are. Shouldn't the news be bringing us facts? Presenting multiple viewpoints? Trying to be unbiased? Or should it be outrageous, and fastest, and first to break the story? I guess that the latter will sell more expensive advertising.

The result is that the rest of us have to listen to a bunch of barely concocted stories and off-the-cuff commentary, lacking insight or depth. It's too bad we all can't earn a living by making something out of nothing.

By the way, if you want to know what "ginger" really is, send $10 to Patrick c/o Buzz, Rant, and Rave and I'll tell you everything I know...