Last night a segment on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart poked a little fun (big surprise) at the new and allegedly better technology on Fox News for collecting and evaluating breaking news.

All political leanings or alignment aside, Jon and his writers do bring up a good point about the over-reliance on new technology as the solutions to problems when that’s not always the case. While Toyota Way principle #8 states:

Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and process.

the point is that the process and its results should always take precedence over the technology that provides it. Fox News is looked upon as being a trusted news source by those with conservative leans, and it doesn’t necessarily matter what technology is used to provide it if that technology doesn’t make the process better.

The new Fox News technology’s improvement of the process is obviously debatable. In fact, it may even add extra effort in collecting and sharing information, which is overprocessing. Sometimes simplicity is sufficient.

Does Glenn Beck lose points or have less credibility because he uses a chalkboard?

As Jon says in the video:

“You don’t get to be better newsmen because your computers go to eleven.”

Remember the 2008 election when CNN was using holograms? Did THOSE provide additional nonpartisan informative value?

Focus on improving the process and use only reliable technology that supports those improvements and the people in the processes. Don’t use technology for technology’s sake.

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