A load of (crystal) balls?

The future, yesterday.

Have you heard about this amazing new technology called 3D Printing? It can make anything, it's really futuristic but you can have it, I personally guarantee it, in 10 years. It's like a photocopier that makes what it sees. It works like a normal 2D printer you have at home. It will revolutionise manufacturing. You'll be able to print your own Strartavarius. It will  one day be available for £50, just like a laser printer...

If you keep an eye on the mainstream media you may well be able to pick a few of those phrases and place them in recent articles, and radio and television broadcasts about AM. These explorations of journalistic integrity (and I realise I am putting myself firmly in the firing line here) range from 'good-natured but hazy' to 'wildly inaccurate and damaging'. 

Now I am not, you may be amazed to find out, a journalist by trade. My (in)eloquence and (un)mastery of the English language are happy bi-products of a mis-spent youth absorbing written content at every opportunity. So saying, it's not for me to belittle a professional though non-technical writer, broadcaster or editor who is looking for a decent story and stumbles across the world of additive manufacturing.

On the surface AM looks like science-fiction, and that's exciting. Let's not pretend that even now, even with the knowledge of the minutiae of what makes the various processes work that it's not still just a little bit cool — especially when you can explain it with confidence and clarity to a slack-jawed AM virgin. Given this, we could all forgive someone for getting a little carried away, spurred on by the enthusiasm of their latest victim interested party.

The problem is, however, that mis-information spreads like a disease as journalists and editors beg, borrow and steal from each other in the race toward the bandwagon. It's not their fault, they've got deadlines and anyway they're only doing this to fund the work on their novel...

The real problem is that this information is coming from somewhere within our own ranks. In the race to get to the front cover of a national magazine or newspaper, influential members of our own community are conveniently overlooking some startling inaccuracies. Again, who can blame them. There's no such thing as bad publicity, right?

So what if your machine isn't anything like a photocopier, and to describe it as such would be both dishonest and misleading? If it makes for an easier headline then let it slide.

So what if this technology isn't British, it is actually American and German? If it suits your story, where's the harm.

Yes, publicity is good. Yes mainstream coverage is desirable. Yes, a few white-lies to spark the public's imagination can be forgiven. But as an industry we're building an rod for our own backs if we let the mis-information continue to infiltrate the mainstream...