Biz media too compliant with Apple

Dan Gillmor, a former tech reporter, writes for The Guardian that the reporters who cover Apple aren’t aggressive enough.

Gillmor writes, “There are, of course, some mitigating factors in journalists’ contribution to this endless charade. Apple is, after all, the most valuable company in the world, one of the most profitable enterprises of all time – largely because it sells technology and software that are world-class and, in several cases, the best, period. And it has enormous influence on popular culture. Moreover, a large segment of the journalism audience seems to devour all news about Apple, even rumors of announcements of upcoming announcements. Online page views of Apple stories are routinely higher than page views for many, if not most other, topics. Paying the bills is part of running a media organization.

“But there’s also a strong element of journalistic laziness, if not worse. Just as covering the horse race is easier for political reporters than digging deep into the issues, lame write-ups about Apple’s latest quarter-turn of the proverbial screw are easier than investigating on Apple’s less-praiseworthy policies and acts. (Here’s some useful journalism relating to the working conditions at Apple’s foreign manufacturers’ plants: an article in Grist, which covers environmental topics, noting that labor costs for iPhones and iPads are a tiny fraction, per unit, of Apple’s overheads. In other words, Apple could still enjoy staggering profit margins even if it required its captive manufacturers to do the right thing.)

“In the 1990s, Microsoft enjoyed much the same kind of treatment from journalists. The run-up to the launch of Windows 95 produced some of the most entertaining hyperbole in media history.”

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