For all those who have a hand in moving freight from one place to another, supply chain issues seemingly have been the primary topic of conversation ever since the first reference to “COVID-19” was uttered nearly two years ago.
For those in the media business reporting on the freight industry — including, of course, here at FreightWaves — the supply chain crisis has been front and center just as long, with stories quickly popping up warning of potential disruptions.
But for the general public — and, by extension, the mainstream media — these supply chain problems only recently caught their attention. What once was an overlooked, or ignored, side of business reporting is now making front-page headlines on a daily basis. The world’s top media outlets are now well aware of the crisis and have jumped all in.
Consider this recent spate of coverage from The New York Times:
Oct. 15 — “The Great Supply Chain Disruption” podcast.
Oct. 21 — “Trade Troubles: Learning About the Global Supply Chain and Why It’s Broken,” a lesson plan by Michael Gonchar.
Oct. 22 — “How the Supply Chain Broke, and Why It Won’t Be Fixed Anytime Soon,” an article by Peter Goodman.
At a time when many offices remain closed and more people are working remotely, the supply chain has become a watercooler topic.
For journalists who have been writing and reporting about the crisis since the initial COVID disruption, it’s been a welcome-to-the-party mentality upon seeing mainstream media outlets finally crank up coverage. It reminded best-selling author and New York Times technology reporter Mike Isaac of a previous stop at All Things D, an online publication launched in 2007 specializing in coverage of the computing industry.
“I would have the same reaction a lot of times,” said Isaac during his keynote conversation Thursday in FreightWaves’ F3 Virtual Experience. “Oh, welcome to what we’ve been writing about for the past three months, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg.”
Since 2014 when he joined the Times, Isaac now has a better understanding of why larger media outlets may be slower to react to potentially significant developments than smaller, B2B-type media outlets focused solely on the industry.
“Being on the other side, there’s a delicate balance of being too in-the-weeds for a broad audience of people who want more generalized coverage versus being totally late to something that’s already a widespread phenomenon,” he said.
“I would argue you’re probably more correct in this instance that supply chain issues have been a world issue for the past year or longer … because of how messed up everything is due to the pandemic,” Isaac said. “Even in my industry, with chip shortages and how that’s affecting car output, video cards and all sorts of stuff, much less getting to how my friend can’t get a washer and dryer delivered to his house right now.
“I do think the outlets sort of have to strike that balance — and don’t always get it right.
“I won’t speak ill of my workplace. But I think that once we realized we might be behind something, we’re like, ‘All right, we’ve got to come in a big way.’”
Isaac certainly came into book writing in a big way. He authored “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” published in 2020 and now a bestseller.
This year, his focus has turned to Facebook, as he’s been on the front lines of the developing story of the social media giant being accused of spreading false information, among other things, and just how accountable it should be — even as it recently rebranded itself as Meta.