As a kid who grew up in a podunk-nothing, mid-sized American city, I know what it’s like to read parachute journalism covering topics and stories close to my heart. Some bad news for my fellow DeFi brethren: you’re all about to get a taste of that feeling, too.
A colloquialism for when reporters tackle material outside their normal scope (picture a correspondent ‘parachuting’ into a war zone, clipping up a short segment, and beaming back to more hospitable climes), parachute journalism often leads to uninformed, sensationalist, and/or propagandistic coverage lacking key nuance — work that consciously or unconsciously confirms the biases of the audience or the reporter themselves. Growing up, I read it over and over again when some new intelligencer blew through town — an ascot-wearing so-and-so covering the G20, the Stanley Cup finals, a campaign stump. They often worked for a publication with “New York” in the title, and were always so pleasantly taken by how a smoggy former steel town could have restaurants that served edible food — somehow our “culinary scene” has been “up-and-coming” for the better part of thirty years.