Unauthorized books and business journalists

Madeline Will, a business journalism student at UNC-Chapel Hill, writes about the difficulty some business journalists face in getting companies to cooperate with them while writing books about their operations.

Will writes, “Many companies decline to cooperate altogether, forcing journalists to obtain information in other ways. Other companies grant limited access, with a list of stipulations attached. When companies do cooperate, journalists have to balance their input with writing the truth.

“‘I think that cooperation is a hard thing,’ said Yukari Iwatani Kane, author of the recent book ‘Haunted Empire: Apple after Steve Jobs.’ ‘A book is really long, you only have so much control, and it’s risky for companies. As a writer, it’s risky as well — you absolutely want a company’s cooperation, if they’re going to give it to you, the answer is always yes. But if you end up with the company’s line, it’s not going to be an interesting book.’

“‘Some of the best journalism has been without the company’s cooperation,’ she said. ‘As a journalist, that’s what everyone aspires to — to tell the truth about something that’s not apparent.’

“‘Haunted Empire,’ which was published this March, examines Apple post-Steve Jobs and the challenges his successor Tim Cook faces at the company’s helm.

“‘It’s a story about what happened to an empire when it loses its emperor,’ said Kane, who was once an Apple beat reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

“Soon after it was published, Cook decried the book as ‘nonsense,’ saying, ‘It fails to capture Apple, Steve, or anyone else in the company.’

“But Apple refused to cooperate with Kane the entire time she was writing the book — something she said was not much different from when she was a beat reporter at the Journal. When it was time to fact-check, she initially ran two questions by the company to test the waters: what kind of tree is in front of Apple’s main building, cherry or apple? And what did Yo-Yo Ma play at Steve Jobs’ memorial service?

“Apple declined to answer the second question. Officials said they would get back to Kane on the first question, but they never did.”

Read more here.