Get up, stand on your chair, and cheer the man:

The list of journalists who write about Second Life but have never been inworld, or poked inworld once or twice but haven't really lived a Second Life, is embarrassing unto itself. Instead of offering lame excuses like "being rushed for time", I outright consider it a superior non-action — morally and tactically — to not write rubbish. Write what's right from experience, not lazy-proxy. Don't put "breaking the story" above "savoring the sensations, lag and all". Don't be lazy and cop another "Get a first life! Hehe" line from another lethargic journo — that has all the grace of a manatee using a Xerox machine to duplicate smudged carbon copies (do I smell verbal inbreeding?). Do cripple the BS.

You can extend the paragraph on "professional" journalists being ignorant of what they report on to all subjects.

Encountered this in my time as an IT manager at a television station, asked by technodummy reporters to interpret the rip-and-reads their equally ignorant producers were writing for them.

Only a few noticed the trend of technology rolling forwards and got on board, immersing in it instead of resisting it.

I worked my fingers to the bone writing up dirt-simple step-by-step procedures to perform basic tasks. Some appreciated the documentation, learned the basics, and built on that on their own, never afraid to hit the magical F1 key.

The others, well, one went so far as to throw my documentation in my face, and if that paper cut had cut just a quarter inch higher, I'd have lost an eye instead of getting a slash on my face.

There are the town criers of our age.

Those that get to know the subjects they report on, you listen to. And you engage them in conversation over their experience so you can learn from them.

Those that just beat the drums of panic and doom for the salespeople to stick between commercials, you just open your window and let the chamberpot fly.

If they duck the challenge of genuine direct engagement, preferring to remain one-way broadcast, well, it's pretty easy to shut that channel off and seek out the interactive and community-based information sources which can stand to defend its ever-flowing river of positions and reports.