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October 04, 2004
Media Watch: How to get a "scoop" in the New York Times
Please allow me to introduce Doug Millison, an editor and journalist who has been covering Silicon Valley for longer than he cares to admit. You'll be seeing more of his work as we roll out the Silicon Valley Media Watch site later this week.
It helps to have genuinely interesting news, of course - although the Grey Lady has been known to launch a dud now and again. Giving the New York Times an exclusive is another way to go. That appears to be the case with a story published late this evening, October 4, at the Times web site, Cheaper Part for Fuel Cells to Be Announced on Tuesday, by Matthew Wald . . . and dated October 5.
Wald reports that Mountain View, California-based PolyFuel will announce "a breakthrough in fuel-cell membranes by using an alternative material: a hydrocarbon that it says costs only about half as much per square meter" compared to membranes made with fluorine compounds by competitors, including "better living through chemistry" megacorp, DuPont. With petroleum prices hovering near the $50 mark, that's potentially exciting, and potentially profitable news.
Wald appears to be the first on the Web with the story. As I write this, PolyFuel has yet to update its web site with a press release of the announcement. When PolyFuel does publish a press release, it will be interesting to see how much of Wald's story is the result of original reporting, and how much of the material came from PolyFuel.
Don't get me wrong - I mean to cast no aspersions on the fine work of Mr. Wald or the Times, even in this era of intense media critique as bloggers relentlessly pound the mainstream media for perceived errors in covering the Presidential campaign (among many other faults and shortcomings.)
At the same time, after 20 years covering Silicon Valley high tech business news, I won't be surprised to find more than a few similarities between the PolyFuel press release and the Times story. When I used to report daily Silicon Valley news for business magazines in Europe, Japan, and Australia, I was always surprised to see how many industry analyst quotes, market research figures, and company "talking points" managed to migrate from the company press release to the story as published in top-tier publications.
It's also interesting to note that Forbes published an article by Lisa DiCarlo just a couple of weeks ago, on September 20, Putting New Life In Batteries, that quoted PolyFuel CEO, Jim Balcom on the growing demand for better power sources.
But, Wald and theTimes got the "scoop" on this one.
UPDATE, October 5: PolyFuel posted a press release at its web site sometime after the Times story appeared yesterday evening.
October 4, 2004 08:15 PM
