(piano riff)

(train horn blows)

NSA leaker Edward Snowden is a menace.

No, not because he passed along information about

classified surveillance programs to the press,

that's sort of awesome.

No, he's a menace because he gives the press

an excuse to trot out the graphics and cutaways

they always use to signify computer usage.

I mean look at this.

Now I understand it's not easy to make encrypted files

and data transfers seem interesting and cool,

especially when some of your viewership's

most recent brush with technology was when an AOL disc

fell out of their Time magazine in 1997.

But this is obscene!

Cables, pointer icons and elaborately named buttons.

Ones and zeros, just like in The Matrix remember?

And that tried and true standby, hands on a keyboard.

And it's not like the movies,

where truth really comes from, do much better.

Let's see here, you've got your preposterous

3D visualizations of hacking.

You've got your meaningless fuse-a-lods of techno babble.

I'll create a gooey interface using Visual Basic,

see if I can track an IP address.

And yes, my personal favorite.

It's moving too fast.

Two people using a keyboard simultaneously

to fight off a hacker in some other locations.

That's not how typing works!

Hollywood discovered the scary internet in the mid-1990's

and they still haven't gotten it right.

Oh my God.

Trust me America, you do not want me as your anchorman.

You couldn't handle it!

(classical music)

(electronic swoosh)

What do you hate about the way

the news media covers technology?

Drop me a line in the comments.