Lyons: The Media's Rotten Reporting on Apple | Newsweek Daniel Lyons | Techtonic Shifts

The media's coverage of Apple bites. Here's why.

Jan 16, 2009 | Updated: 11:17 a.m. ET Jan 16, 2009

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For the past six months Steve Jobs has been looking terribly ill. But only this week did Apple finally acknowledge that Jobs isn't doing well, when the company announced that Jobs would take a leave for six months. Some suggest the company has misled investors; shareholder lawsuits seem likely. But how did the company manage to carry on this charade for so long? The sad fact is they had help from the media.

The worst thing about the coverage of the Steve Jobs health fiasco at Apple is not only that much of the media failed to pursue the story. A lot of us feel uneasy about prying into someone's health. We'd just rather not go there. But in this case the media went beyond just ignoring the story and actually helped Apple tamp down the story, which kept bubbling up, usually on blogs.

On Wednesday night I went on CNBC and was obnoxious enough to point out, on the air, that CNBC itself had been put into the latter camp by a Silicon Valley bureau chief who had appointed himself the official defender of Steve Jobs and Apple. Worse yet, in December, when one blog in the Valley reported that Jobs had canceled his annual Macworld keynote because "Steve's health is rapidly declining," this reporter went out of his way to attack that outlet and refute its report, both on air and in print. The CNBC guy claimed he had sources deep inside Apple who were telling him that Jobs was healthy. "Apple's Jobs is (Still) Fine," was his headline on the CNBC Web site.

Turns out, however, that the blog—a gadget site called Gizmodo—was right, and the CNBC guy was wrong. When I was on air, I pointed this out, and suggested the CNBC reporter should apologize to Gizmodo, and also to his viewers for having misled them. For this I've now become persona non grata at CNBC. From what I was told after the show, it's highly unlikely that I'll ever be invited back. (For what it's worth, after the show I apologized to Goldman and others at CNBC for being so rude. And the next day, a CNBC spokesman said that I have not been "banned" from the network.)

The larger takeaway is what this episode says about how the media covers Apple. It's one thing for PR flacks to tell lies. That is, after all, what they get paid to do. But it's another thing for the media to join in on the action.

The fact is, in the eyes of the media, Apple is the corporate equivalent of Barack Obama—a company that can do no wrong. Even in Silicon Valley, where much of the press corps are pretty much glorified cheerleaders (think of all those slobbering cover stories about the Google guys) Apple's kid-gloves treatment stands out. Reporters don't just overlook Apple's faults; they'll actually apologize for them, or rationalize them away. Ever seen reporters clapping and cheering at a press conference? Happens all the time at Apple events.

Jobs is famous for what Apple watchers call his "reality distortion field"—that is, his ability to convince people that the world is one way when it's really another. The last six months have been the most outrageous example of the reality distortion field I've ever seen. Anyone with half a brain and pair of eyes could look at Steve Jobs last June and know that this was not a healthy 53-year-old man. Yet for months Apple fanboys and Apple's friends in the media have bent themselves into pretzels in search of ways to argue that he's in fine health.

This is full of contradictions.

When Apple was beleaguered, all the fans cried that the media were unfair to Apple. Now it???s successful, and its enemies say the media are propping it up. But I don???t see it. When the ipod came out, there were innumerable articles predicting its demise in the face of more open systems: ???It???ll lose just like the mac did???, they wrote over and over. Same thing when the iphone came out. And the press have never stopped writing about how Apple products are overpriced, even though direct comparisons often contradict them. Apple has plenty of naysayers in the press, including Dvorak, you, and plenty of others. If you feel ignored, maybe there???s a reason: people like what they buy from Apple.

What would be a reason for a media conspiracy either for or against Apple? The media is a business, and they write what people want to read. In the final analysis, it???s what a company does that determines its treatment by the press, and Apple has been getting things right lately. If it???s so easy ??? set prices too high, be secretive, seduce reporters ??? how is it so many tech companies fail? You of all people should be able to make billions acting just like Jobs, winning over the gullible media hacks, and selling snake oil to the public.

You (and more explicitly some commenters) complain about the hero worship of Jobs in one breath, and then worship him yourself by demanding his daily stool samples, because he is the hero of Apple.

You claim his illness is obvious to anyone with a pulse, and then complain that investors are being swindled because they don???t know that he???s sick. Jobs brush with death is well known; anyone who invests in Apple (including me) does it with open eyes. To my mind, investors have no more right to more detailed information about his prospects (if they are even known to anyone) than we have to detailed information about their future product plans (which also affect the stock prospects).

You blame the media for phony Apple press, and then write the phoniest Palm Pre review imagineable.

I think you just get far too invested in one technological ideology or another, and lose all contact with reality. The Ann Coulter of technology.

1.)It's true you called that spade for what he was, it could have been done with a little less snark. But the CNBC stooge's feigned outrage was definitely the most public case of, "Hamina, hamina, hamina!", since The Great One waltzed across the Kinescopic stage. His reaction to you is right up there with Claude Rains immortal line from Casablanca, "I'm shocked! Shocked that gambling is going on in these premises!" ("Your winnings, sir", Oh, er, uh, thank you!")
2.)A link to a layman's guide to Steve Job's previous illness (www.slate.com/id/2209408/). Personally, from my Apple sources (maybe I'm misinformed, too), Job's is suffering from ulcerative colitis and had been ignoring symptoms until six to eight weeks ago. He'll be fine enough for public appearances in six months, but he's not so sick he's going to pass up his seat on the Disney board.

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Posted By: kewlf @ 02/13/2009 4:01:52 AM

I love your crisp, if necessary unpolite way of telling the truth. It's refreshing. Apart from the hardware aspect Apple is a fashion brand for men like Prada for girls - ever tried to argue with your wife about the priceworthiness of her new handbag?
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Posted By: samuel.black @ 01/27/2009 5:46:58 PM

This is full of contradictions.

When Apple was beleaguered, all the fans cried that the media were unfair to Apple. Now it???s successful, and its enemies say the media are propping it up. But I don???t see it. When the ipod came out, there were innumerable articles predicting its demise in the face of more open systems: ???It???ll lose just like the mac did???, they wrote over and over. Same thing when the iphone came out. And the press have never stopped writing about how Apple products are overpriced, even though direct comparisons often contradict them. Apple has plenty of naysayers in the press, including Dvorak, you, and plenty of others. If you feel ignored, maybe there???s a reason: people like what they buy from Apple.

What would be a reason for a media conspiracy either for or against Apple? The media is a business, and they write what people want to read. In the final analysis, it???s what a company does that determines its treatment by the press, and Apple has been getting things right lately. If it???s so easy ??? set prices too high, be secretive, seduce reporters ??? how is it so many tech companies fail? You of all people should be able to make billions acting just like Jobs, winning over the gullible media hacks, and selling snake oil to the public.

You (and more explicitly some commenters) complain about the hero worship of Jobs in one breath, and then worship him yourself by demanding his daily stool samples, because he is the hero of Apple.

You claim his illness is obvious to anyone with a pulse, and then complain that investors are being swindled because they don???t know that he???s sick. Jobs brush with death is well known; anyone who invests in Apple (including me) does it with open eyes. To my mind, investors have no more right to more detailed information about his prospects (if they are even known to anyone) than we have to detailed information about their future product plans (which also affect the stock prospects).

You blame the media for phony Apple press, and then write the phoniest Palm Pre review imagineable.

I think you just get far too invested in one technological ideology or another, and lose all contact with reality. The Ann Coulter of technology.
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: lastangelman @ 01/22/2009 7:09:34 AM

1.)It's true you called that spade for what he was, it could have been done with a little less snark. But the CNBC stooge's feigned outrage was definitely the most public case of, "Hamina, hamina, hamina!", since The Great One waltzed across the Kinescopic stage. His reaction to you is right up there with Claude Rains immortal line from Casablanca, "I'm shocked! Shocked that gambling is going on in these premises!" ("Your winnings, sir", Oh, er, uh, thank you!")
2.)A link to a layman's guide to Steve Job's previous illness (www.slate.com/id/2209408/). Personally, from my Apple sources (maybe I'm misinformed, too), Job's is suffering from ulcerative colitis and had been ignoring symptoms until six to eight weeks ago. He'll be fine enough for public appearances in six months, but he's not so sick he's going to pass up his seat on the Disney board.