Saving the Macalope the trouble
Posted April 6, 2007
By The Macalope
The Macalope read this and Inner Daemon saved him the trouble late on a Friday afternoon.
Note to the media: sometimes the facts aren’t “balanced”. And any time you have to resort to calling Rob Enderle is probably one of those times.
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Yeah.. well.. everyone with have an antler knows that the media is rarely unbiased..
Let’s suppose you were a journalist who wanted to write one of these balanced stories you claim to desire to read. Let’s suppose the story you’ve been assigned to write is “The Mac is rubbish for the enterprise.” And you ring some prominent people in various enterprises and they are all using Microsoft Windows, and they are very positive about it, so you get some good quotes and points of view about Windows in the enterprise. Now, being a good journalist who wants to present a balanced story, you realise that all the quotes you have are from people who are using Windows in the enterprise and like it (which is a very great many despite what some Mac fanboys would like you to believe).
So you call a few more people in various enterprises and they, too, are using Windows, have no Macs, no knowledge of Macs in the enterprise, and are very happy with Windows.
After a while, in your burning desire to include at least some positive opinion about the Mac in the enterprise, wouldn’t you start to turn away positive Windows stories, because you had enough of those, and only be willing to accept, somewhere, someone who might give a positive story about the Mac in the enterprise?
I’m not sure Inner Daemon isn’t jumping to conclusions there.
The thing is, as the Macalope sagely observed awhile back, some people were just looking to piss in the pool.
These “commentators” were enjoying pointing the finger over DRM –
“… God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, users of DRM even as this Steve Jobs.” (with apologies to Luke 18: 11)
And now they just can’t stand that their excuse for righteous pontificating has gone – because there’s now a pretty good deal DRM-free deal going down. Consequently, they’ve been looking pretty industriously for some reason, any reason, not to like that deal.
This isn’t Rob at all, is it? It seems to me he’s a wide boy not a hater. I don’t think he hates Apple in the way that some of the Microsoft “fanboys” do either. He just has his deals, and he’s not perhaps too scrupulous about talking up this or that client or talking down their competitors.
In point of fact, Inner Daemon *is* jumping to conclusions there. Here’s what Enderle said about the deal:
Quote ……….
“The pressure is huge. Now that EMI has done it, the other music studios will have to do it to,” said analyst Rob Enderle. (EMI is one of the so-called Big Four record companies, along with Sony BMG, Warner and Universal.) “And it’s probably a precursor to what will happen for video.”
……End quote
http://adage.com/digital/article.php?article_id=115894
Doug,
I think you have an interesting point of view. But really why would a “good journalist” start out with such a shitty premise as “The Mac is rubbish for the enterprise.” If she were any good she would probably turn the question around and ask “Which is the prefered platform for the enterprise?”
And then maybe she would find that asking a 100 people, all 100 prefered Windows. She could then ask another 100 and find the same. And maybe, just maybe, asking the next 100 would reveal 10 who actually use Macs in the enterprise and they love it. So the right kind of reporting would say that well out of 300 people polled, 10 loved Macs, and that no one really hated the Mac in the enterprise.
How hard is this kind of journalism? But I guess, there is a difference between searching for truth in a situation and trying to be sensational. Then again, what do I really know about journalism!
Jackasses must be allowed the opportunity to voice their assery, otherwise we might, in our ignorance, accidentally assume their opinions mattered.
Doug
You dont decide what the conclusion of your story is and then look for “facts” to back them up. You decide what you want to be writing a story on, and then you use the facts and opinions you have gathered to write a conclusion.
Thats the lost art of journalism. That is how you remain balanced, by not being prejudiced at the outset…
Well, ideally, a news article should simply report facts (“Apple and EMI are selling un-DRMed songs at 2x the bitrate for 30 cents more”) and leave conclusions and opinions to the editorials.
“Well, ideally, a news article should simply report facts …”
Good grief, why “simply report facts” when, if you’re a professional liar, like Paul Thurrott, you can simply _make them up_. Isn’t that so much easier and more profitable?
“Apple will sell DRM-free music in the AAC format, which has serious compatibility issues with non-Apple hardware. …”
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/ArticleID/95736/95736.html
I’m sure Thurrott knows full well that AAC is part of the MPEG standards, and that it will, not surprisingly, play on _any_ hardware that runs Windows or Linux, as well as on some, though not all, portable players.
But here he is trying to spread disinformation by telling ignorant Windows users that it’s Apple’s format, albeit not in so many words.