We Feel Your Pain... Help is on the Way!

The Associated Press (AP) article in the local paper squawked about Intuit "dropping support" for Quicken on the Macintosh. The inaccurate article was displayed oh-so-prominently with a misleading end-of-the-world headline. You'd have thought Godzilla was making a beeline for Cupertino. Words depicting doom, gloom, death, and destruction of biblical proportions leapt from the page.

I finally had enough and just couldn't take it anymore. I won't tell you which newspaper it was that played up these prevarications so dramatically. It could, after all, have been nearly any American newspaper. With a handfull of exceptions, newspapers in this country have long since reached such a level of mundane conformity, it's impossible to tell one from the next.

I counted to 100 then took 10 or so really deep breaths to slow my pulse and clear my head. I won't call them idiots, I won't call them idiots. It became a mantra. Mustering all the self-discipline I could, I penned the following letter and sent it to the Business Editor at the "news"paper:

Joe Blow *, 

Couldn't help noticing the piece on Intuit dropping new development for the Macintosh. Wow, 11 column inches and, what, a 42 pt headline? On a section front no less. It's a shame you couldn't give Apple that kind of coverage of all the really great news they're having lately. Sales are up, they've moved ahead of other computer companies in rankings, their stocks were the hot item on the NASDAQ when other computer industry stocks were down, among a plethora of positive news.

Intuit has reversed their decision and will make an announcement to that effect later this week. I trust that in the interest of objectivity you'll want to give that news equally prominent display. Hopefully, that won't get sandwiched between announcements of local business promotions. Which, for some strange coincidence, is typical of where the positive Apple news seems to wind up.

For the record, I am not associated with Apple Computer or any of their subsidiaries in any shape, form, or fashion.

* No, that's not the real name.

Morons-R-Us?

As I wrote this note, I stewed over how moronic these buffoons were. Clearly there was more to the Quicken issue than the standard version passed off as news by the big news/entertainment machines. What idiot couldn't see that, I asked?

I pondered upon how they had managed to funnel every mental defective in the world into the field of journalism. Then I stopped and thought about it. I'd grown up in a newspaper. My father was the News Editor at a paper and his brother was the Publisher of another paper. An award-winning journalist babysat my siblings and me when we were mere toddlers. I worked at the newspaper in high school and my first year in college. In fact, it seemed that everyone in the family worked for a paper. I married a journalist and heck, that's what I'm doing right now, come to think of it.

After this sunk in, I realized that newspaper people are a cross section of America. (This might not give you a warm, fuzzy feeling.) Some are very, very bright. Some are morons. Most are evenly distributed between these extremes. Think normal distribution — the bell curve.

Most newspaper people strive to be good at their job. Their job is to... ta-da... put out newspapers. They are a business. So much so that my father nudged me away from journalism, saying "There's no integrity in it anymore."

Newspaper editors, by and large, know far less about computers and computer companies than you do about newspapers. They get the preponderance of their computer articles from the AP, United Press International (UPI), and other "wire" services. These wire services are notoriously simple-minded in covering complex issues — you know, those more involved than "Councilman X voted to raise garbage collection fees."

An Industry Under Fire

On April 1st of this year, about the same time I was sending my letter to the Business Editor at newspaper X, it was Credibility Day at the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) convention in Washington, D.C. The ASNE is kicking off a million-dollar "credibility project." Was it mere happenstance or divine intervention that landed Credibility Day on April Fools Day? Inquiring minds want to know.

The media have become a laughing stock and they're finally getting the message. A survey by Editor and Publisher found that nearly half of America's reporters and editors think press coverage is shallow and inadequate. 

In January, the Pew Research Center determined that 63 percent of news readers and viewers believe stories are often inaccurate, up from 56 percent a year ago. A 1996 poll found that only 21 percent of readers have "a great deal of confidence" in newspapers, down from 35 percent in 1989.

Statistic after statistic documents Americans' dwindling faith in the press.

The newspapers need our help. They desperately, urgently need our help. Let's try to help them. The Mac folk are renowned for their helpfulness.

Here's What We Can Do to Help Them

1. Send a brief, polite note to the appropriate editor. "Appropriate" is a key word here. There are news editors, society editors, business editors, sports editors, etc. It helps the cause of truth and justice very little to send your helpful note on computer coverage to the person who marks up the obituaries. Nowadays, many papers have a web site which will tell you how to contact the staff. The URL is generally available in the newspaper.

2. Be specific and informative. Point out that stories related to positive Apple news (titled such and such on dates so and so) were sandwiched between announcements of an open house at the rescue mission and the garbage pick-up schedule. Point out that articles negative to Apple (be specific) were splayed across the front page like the Clinton/Lewinsky affair.

3. Do not say things like "This is evidence that you Stalinist/Leninist pigs hate Apple." Even if true, pointing it out is considered gauche and you will lose two points.

4. Do say something like, "This appears to present a bias. I do not feel that you personally are biased. If you were to notice a publication consistently and prominently displaying bad news about a company while relegating the frequent good new to the hinterlands, wouldn't you question that publication's objectivity?"

5. Do not write a letter saying you are an attorney representing Apple and you're suing the pants off of them. The few seconds of angina this tactic will produce might be gratifying to you, but they'll just get that much more weird about the issue.

6. Do mention that the inaccuracies such as these are exactly the reason the Pew Research Center has found that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that news stories are frequently inaccurate. Feel free to point out that this is precisely why only 21 percent of readers have "a great deal of confidence" in newspapers.

If one or two people write, they'll assume that it's "The Apple Zealots" who roam the planet looking for innocent, objective news outlets to ravage. If 25 people with well-reasoned, cool, collected, factual letters call the newspaper to task, they will stop and think about it. By and large, they don't dislike Apple. They're following the pack and are damned proud of it. Help give them a new pack to follow.

Here's what I'm doing — I recently started collecting every reference to Apple I can find in the local paper. After I've collected enough of these to be statistically meaningful, I'll be heading down to the newspaper to lay them all out in front of their brain trust. I'll ask them just one question —"If this was another paper wouldn't you question their objectivity?"

If they have any response other than "yes", they're damned liars and then we go to Plan B.

P.S. Thanks, Daria, for the idea behind this article.

         Craig Cox
           craig@applewizards.net

   

                                             http://applewizards.net/