mainstream media understand seo?

Can the Mainstream Media Understand SEO?
By Jim Hedger | Published 05/4/2006

http://www.isedb.com/db/articles/1435/

A great article by Jim Hedger fully explaining the apparent "lack of understanding of SEO" by reporters, from main stream media.

"Writers in the mainstream media still find it difficult to wrap their heads around the practice of search engine optimization without sensing and reporting some form of techno-skullduggery. Articles appearing in the mainstream media tend to note how SEOs “game” the search engines by using techniques that give documents an unfair advantage. Perhaps reporters on the business and marketing beats simply perceive SEOs as cyberpunk hackers-for-hire,..."

He also comments that ..."mainstream journalists need to feel they understand the subject they are covering and have a limited amount of time in which to learn it".

And I do understand his above thought. A 'petrol head' friend who raced sprint cars (where I once lived), explained the lack of popularity of this spectacular form of dirt track racing, in a similar tone .... He explained that sports writers understood what was a great tackle in football, could describe the feeling of 'bat onto ball' when a timed "hook shot", sails for six over the boundary, "because they will have played either of these games at some level in their life and were confident about writing superlatives, on the subject." He then explained that as they had no concept of .."how the set-up of the car helped, along with the amount of pressure in each tire & why, etc, and that both suited the conditions of the track on the night" & that.... "it was hard to get them interested in the sport, simply because they lacked basic understanding of the finer points".

I found Jim's article most interesting but wondered if a more easily understood "contextual" type of advertising may (or, could) make further inroads into the world of SEO, than is recognised? Personally, I can see a certain 'simplicity' in the placement of an advertisement alongside content relevant to the product or, service being displayed, as having a big future. Verticals will be prominent as they gain traction. And even more so if talk of any future formation of one or, more Publisher and Media Co 'content consortium' type networks, do become a reality.

:)

LC