This post was originally published on Medium.

I have longed cringed at how the mainstream media reports on the technology industry to the public. From use of randomly-selected synonyms to just downright misunderstanding of particular technologies, it’s sort of embarrassing to the reporter (usually someone who calls themselves a “technology reporter”) and the publication.

The latest examples come courtesy of The New York Times. I was alerted to this via a piece on BGR by Yoni Heisler titled, “The New York Times’ latest Apple hit piece is embarrassing and downright lazy.” Disclosure: I am a subscriber to The Times because I support their journalism. Their political reporters in particular have done a tremendous service to our country over the last couple of years. I usually trust what The Times writes about politics because I am not an expert in it. But the two pieces mentioned by BGR, about screen-time apps, and the editorial about Apple’s supposed monopoly are downright silly, because I do know a thing or two about technology and Apple.

We’ve come to this. The K-12 Florida Christian School in Miami is selling bulletproof panels for children to insert into their backpacks. Teachers will show students how to install these ballistic shields. You know, because mass shootings and ’Merica.

We have come to this, when schools need to outfit their students with bulletproof gear just to keep their students safe. This is the endgame for the National Rifle Association of America (aka NRA). It is guns everywhere. Schools, churches, hospitals, courthouses, bars. Everywhere.

In a recent interview on Fresh Air, journalist Mike Spies said:

Sex

With coffee in hand, I flipped through Facebook yesterday morning. “Me too” read one post from a female friend I used to work with. Incredibly intelligent, hands-down one of the smartest women — no, people — I’d ever worked with just posted two words. I thought it was a mispost that was supposed to be a reply, a butt-post if you will. Then I saw another, and this time with an explanation. And throughout the day, my feed depressingly filled up with “Me too” posts, illustrating how common sexual harassment and assault of women are.

Of course this movement was spurred on by the bombshell investigative journalism by the New York Times and the New Yorker. Last week they broke open a story that’s eluded the media for so long: Harvey Weinstein and his serial sexual harassment and assault of women in Hollywood.

I was working from home on Friday and happened to have the TV turned on to CNN. Therefore I watched the defeat of the House Republican’s American Health Care Act (AHCA) in real time. But I wouldn’t have if I were tuned to Fox News Channel instead. A conservative friend of mine was watching Fox News Channel that day, and was moved by its assertion that the “mainstream media” was not covering the Maryland rape case sufficiently. Our two different experiences actually illustrated this great article from the New York Times called “One Nation, Under Fox: 18 Hours With a Network That Shapes America.” It’s an excellent reminder about media bias — right or left.

After reading the article this weekend, I came to this conclusion: There are roughly 325 million people in the United States. More than ever in my life I’ve come to understand that there are then 325 million different experiences. Each of our life experiences is different. There is no way that any media outlet can cover all those stories. But those same media outlets can impose their own worldviews onto their audiences. Those individuals in the audience will either have their own worldview reinforced, or go elsewhere for that reinforcement.

A couple of weeks ago, I happened upon a site called crowdSPRING. I forget exactly how I got to the site, but what I found there made me feel a little icky and left a bad taste in my mouth. I wrote a tweet about it (which in turn updated my Facebook status) and many of my designer friends had strong negative reactions too.

Stepping back a bit, what is crowdSPRING? It’s a website that allows companies to post briefs for design projects (mostly logos and websites), with the expectation that dozens if not hundreds of designers from around the world will post their solutions to those projects. Finished solutions. Not portfolios, resumes or even sketches. But the finished logo, website comps, CD packaging design, etc.

Why the ick factor? It took me a few days to process it internally, but I eventually came to this conclusion: the site sucks time away from thousands of budding designers. They are all working for free. Only the lucky ones whose solutions get chosen are paid. Imagine if you ate dinner at five different restaurants and only paid for the one dinner you liked? That is what’s happening on crowdSPRING: free work.