The SF Chronicle ran a piece this weekend about companies that leak big announcements to major newspapers. I'm trying to figure why.

Now, every journalist I know complains about the way that companies leak stuff to the Wall Street Journal. Yes, of course there ethical issues. No one disputes that. And they got a journalism professor to warn that the resulting story can be a white-wash. Although honestly, I don't think that happens. No journalist worth his salt is going to write a puff-piece just because they got an exclusive. And as much as the WSJ's op-ed page makes me want to vomit, they do have journalistic standards.

But it's such inside ball game; I can't figure out why the Chron thinks anyone not in the news business would care. It's part of this media mentality that gosh, we're so important that the rest of the world must be dying to hear about how we live our lives. Not so much (go ask Stephen Brill). The news is what's important, the media is just the messenger.

Although really I don't think that was the reason the Chron ran the piece. It basically reads like someone at the Chron got beat on a story and decided to write an "expose" about the WSJ. Please. It's one of the bitchiest things I've read in a while, and I have subscriptions to Entertainment Weekly and Martha Stewart.

Hey, doesn't this story in the New York Times about the NYC police department's use of digital photography in domestic abuse cases sound famailar?

Maybe it's because Salon ran this story about the NYC police department's use of digital photography in domestic abuse cases two months ago.