The thing is, you really can't trust any of the tech publications. You can find an ethical reporter or two in the crowd, but the organizations tend to be corrupt.
I used to work at an ad agency, and one of my jobs was pitching stories to tech trade media about the companies I represented, as well as researching ad buys. I had sort of a mixed practice serving tech clients - I would do PR, ad research, brochures, websites, business plans, etc.
When I was pitching a story to an editor or reporter, there was never any discussion of ad buys or quid pro quo for placing ads, but on the other side of the shop - when talking to publishers and salesmen who sold ads, I can't even count the number of times I was either straight up offered a story in exchange for an ad buy, or given assurances like "I'll make sure the editors read your press releases." I'm at least happy to say that the agency I worked for didn't go for that type of thing, so I was free to politely ignore their offers, but I imagine that's not universal.
From these kind of conversations, I draw the conclusion that these organizations are rotten to the core, and they let the ad salesmen handle the dirty work. I never had this kind of offer from eWeek or InformationWeek and publications of that size, but the small ones were often dirty, and owned by the same conglomerates that own the big boys.
You should also be suspicious of expert articles written by industry professionals in trade publications. They might just be ghost-written by some 20-something at an ad agency.
Hmmm, I wrote and edited UK IT trade magazines for well over 15 years and I can tell you a couple of things in my experience:
1. The editorial staff didn't give a fig for the adverts that went in. Once the magazine had been put to bed, we hardly ever looked at it again, apart from to see how the colour repro came out.
2. Occassionally we would get calls from a vendor who was stupid enough to suggest that we should cover them, since they advertised. It gave us the greatest pleasure to tell them we really didn't care.
3. Occasionally an ad-sales guy would make a stupid promise to bring something to editorial's attention. They got short shrift. But that's what ad-sales sometimes guys do, they sometimes make silly promises to try and make their quota. That doesn't mean the organisation is rotten to the core.
They're just stenographers for PR flacks, from the groveling interns to Woodward & Bernstein (they were taking dictation from the acting head of the FBI!).
His claim that IDG execs knew the whole time is pretty explosive. That makes the issue a LOT more about their own integrity as an organization (but I have no reason to believe that claim).
This Randall Kennedy dude is an epic troll. I love his responses to the article. He spent years as a writer basically pimping this terrible xpnet stuff. If he's not lying about getting companies to throw down real cash on his shitty software then he won and he's laughing all the way to the bank.
I used to work at an ad agency, and one of my jobs was pitching stories to tech trade media about the companies I represented, as well as researching ad buys. I had sort of a mixed practice serving tech clients - I would do PR, ad research, brochures, websites, business plans, etc.
When I was pitching a story to an editor or reporter, there was never any discussion of ad buys or quid pro quo for placing ads, but on the other side of the shop - when talking to publishers and salesmen who sold ads, I can't even count the number of times I was either straight up offered a story in exchange for an ad buy, or given assurances like "I'll make sure the editors read your press releases." I'm at least happy to say that the agency I worked for didn't go for that type of thing, so I was free to politely ignore their offers, but I imagine that's not universal.
From these kind of conversations, I draw the conclusion that these organizations are rotten to the core, and they let the ad salesmen handle the dirty work. I never had this kind of offer from eWeek or InformationWeek and publications of that size, but the small ones were often dirty, and owned by the same conglomerates that own the big boys.
You should also be suspicious of expert articles written by industry professionals in trade publications. They might just be ghost-written by some 20-something at an ad agency.