The mainstream computing media is famous for propagating FUD. Writers are reluctant to endorse new technologies that don't have a giant corporation's ``seal of approval'' because it makes them look stupid when the new technologies fail, and large corporation's media relations arms are very good at ``handling'' mainstream writers (feeding them spin and FUD when necessary). However, this is an easy one to handle. You cannot turn mainstream writers and editors into advocates for alternative technologies, but you can definitely correct their FUD by contacting them whenever they generate FUD. Make sure you do this in a clear, friendly, non-aggressive manner as a simple fact correction. This approach works. You'll note that the mainstream media is not spreading as many outright lies about Linux, for example, as they once did.
Thus the media is a source, but not the primary source, for FUD. Remember that most people repeating FUD are not the originators of the FUD. Rather, they are merely repeating FUD that was told to them by someone else. Now that so many IS departments are headed by people from accounting or marketing, there is not the kind of knowledge at the top for these people to separate FUD from fact.
However, the probability is that most FUD spread in this way originated from vendors who are selling to this ``pointy-haired boss''. Salesmen are trained in their own technology, not in other people's technology. So if this potential client says ``Hey, what about this Linux thing I've been hearing about?'' the salesman has no facts to give. Rather than look stupid and lose the sale, he's going to say something, anything, such as ``Yeah, it's a good operating system, but it doesn't have any support, you know? And besides, NT 5.0 is gonna blow it into the weeds. Those pimple-faced teenage geek hackers who write it can't keep up with real programmers like Microsoft's.''
Please keep this in mind: The original FUDmonger is usually long in the past. The person spreading the FUD is generally merely repeating FUD that he was told by someone else. Thus attacking him for being deliberately deceptive is unwarranted. It is possible to attack him as being a cretin (for believing a salesman rather than his own IS staff). But attacking him for being a cretin is counter-productive, as I discuss down below.