While there’s no question that confidence in mainstream media is slipping, many people still see it as the authority on newsworthy matters.
But even journalists from the big publishing houses are under extreme deadline pressure thanks to the surge in online content. Instead of weekly deadlines they may now face daily ones.
The consequence is often that what is really news is subsumed by what the media companies think people want to read, watch or listen to.
Often, the two are not the same. And that is certainly the case with reporting about LinkedIn™. Recently two top news outlets – The Guardian and Bloomberg – have run articles about LinkedIn™ that are wildly inaccurate at best and badly misleading at worse.
They are also out of date and not about what is currently happening with the platform. Maybe that’s because in general they're written by people who don't use LinkedIn™ or use it very well, quoting others who are in the same boat.
The news should be about what LinkedIn™ is doing with its AI, rather than the old chestnut that LinkedIn™ is too much like Facebook. People have posted Facebook-like content for years and while it’s annoying, it’s not news.
Yes, people are telling personal stories as it relates to their business which is relevant and perfectly justified on LinkedIn™. But there're no more or fewer of them than there have ever been.
So for big news outlets to shout from the rooftops that LinkedIn™ is broken, is not working or isn’t worth your time is nonsense.
If anything, LinkedIn™ is improving all the time. Sure, there are problems and when LinkedIn™ staff themselves spread such misinformation as profile videos still being available (they’re not and haven’t been since the end of 2023), you may think the doomsayers have a point.
But the recent addition of a portal to the Tik Tok-style video feed that’s been semi-hiding for months tells you that there is more positive than negative news to be written about.
Of course, good news doesn’t sell. Bad news and clickbait headlines do. And the problem is we don’t know it’s inaccurate or simply wrong until we click on the link. Then it’s too late. Your click is money in their pocket.
We’re all guilty of following such links which is surely what these outlets pedalling their mistruths count on.
And while I see no solution to that given human nature, I do think it’s worth suggesting that we should trust experts and specialists in our fields of interest rather than articles simply written as sensationalist nonsense.