It's OK if technology news is transactional. It's just that most people who want press have not asked themselves what they're bringing to the table. Too often, it's just a request for coverage, and that will fail.
Founders who want exposure should find out how they can help reporters do their jobs better, by making intros, flagging interesting posts on HN, digging into their own data for insights and generally working hard to make the reporter look good. If a source can complete his side of the transaction, then the journalist will want to help in turn.
The way things work now, tech PR firms serve up tech journalists to CEOs at swanky dinners where no one says anything interesting, and the reporter goes home with a bunch of canned quotes that would be useless in a story.
To sum it up: Anyone who wants press should be giving reporters access, insights and information that will lead to stories that tens or hundreds of thousands of people would want to read. Figure out how to do that, and you have the basis for a relationship.
