Why do papers put people who commit Denial of Service attacks in the same category as hackers?

It's all generic for the tabloids and most tabloid journalists wouldn't know the difference between a brute force entry and a backdoor crack, a hacker is a cracker is a warez merchant as far as they care. I'm no techno guru but some of the garbage tabloid journalists have reported as techno news is beyond belief. Remember 2yk? some of them went so far as to tell people not to sit near electrical sockets.