Why are so many websites painful to look at and worse to use? Web designer Jeffrey Zeldman has found the culprit: the media. Reporters don't get the Web, he claims, or if they do, their bosses force them to run stories about business deals instead of design. An entertaining conspiracy theory, but entirely false. If anything, there's been very real pressure from newspaper and magazine publishers to churn out page after page of "special coverage" on design, packaged nicely with high-gloss advertisements. Online editors who closely watch website stats know better: Design stories, while occasionally worth doing, don't get the clicks. Good design is like pornography: People know it when they see it. They don't need to be lectured about it.

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