Rant Stop blaming Engadget
THE MAINSTREAM PRESS is about as sanctimonious as the smug git in the Apple ads after 'blogging magazine' Engadget yesterday ran a yarn that the cappuccino outfit was set to delay some of its products again.
For about an hour Apple's shares went into free fall after millions of shareholders tried to flog them and buy something more sensible.
Engadget says it got the information for its story from a 'trusted news source' within Apple and the source email came from inside the outfit's networks.
But the mainstream media, such as
Information Weak has been laying it on a bit too thick with quotes like "Journalism 101 says you should have confirmed the story with Apple first."
Clearly
Information Weak has never tried to get a quote from Jobs' Mob, particularly when it is a real story rather than some nonsense about how the Ipod can cancer.
The Apple spinsters have a policy of not talking to the media unless it is to confirm what it sent them in a press release. "Journalism 101" assumes that the other side is not going to be paranoid or lie until they are blue in the face about things that are trivial.
For example, we found out that Leopard was going to be late. Apple was denying it and insistes that it would be out in spring, right up until the moment it wasn't. We knew they were lying, they must have known it too. Do we hang on to the story because Apple is lying? No. If that was the case there would not be an online magazine in the world writing anything decent.
What Apple refuses to understand is its attitude is counter-productive.
Journalists should have a thing about people being secretive, it means that they have something to hide. So the real IT press, as opposed to those who print Jobs' Mobs' propaganda, get around the problem by feeding moles in the company.
You can't reveal your sources, but generally they will get a real story in a raw unprocessed sort of way. Sometimes you will get it wrong, but more often you have enough of the truth there to tell people "I told you so" in the aftermath.
It is just that, when you get it wrong, Apple shareholders lose $4 billion in cash. One would think that Apple's PR might wonder if its policy is making its shareholders losers.
More here
here and
here.
The INQuirer