“Another group of workers at Foxconn have taken to the roof and threatened to kill themselves in protest at working conditions and pay,” Tim Worstall reports for Forbes.
“This is of course immediately reported as being about Apple who are indeed one of Foxconn’s major customers,” Worstall reports. “All of which is rather odd because the dispute doesn’t seem to be about manufacturing Apple equipment at all, but about Microsoft. Here’s how Reuters reported the story: ‘Workers at a Chinese factory owned by Foxconn, Apple Inc’s main manufacturer, threatened to jump off the roof of a building in a protest over wages just a month after the two firms announced a landmark agreement on improving working conditions.’ They then go on to point out that Apple’s profits and sales are soaring.”
Worstall reports, “Now they don’t actually say that this protest is about Apple, that’s true. But it’s also the impression you get from reading the piece, that it is indeed about Apple. What with all the talk about the 2010 suicides, the FLA investigation into Foxconn at Apple’s invitation and so on. However, there’s a rather important detail left out of that report… The plant doesn’t have anything to do with Apple. It produces for Microsoft [Xbox 360]. And yet most of the news stories are leading with headlines about Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we explained a mere five days ago, “When it comes to Apple, Reuters is the new CNET.”
Related articles:
Chinese Foxconn workers protest wages, threaten to jump off roof – April 27, 2012
Apple supplier Foxconn cuts working hours; workers worry, question why – March 30, 2012
Foxconn: The fire that wasn’t – March 15, 2012
Apple supplier Foxconn again lifts pay for China workers; 16-25 percent increase – February 17, 2012
FLA President: Foxconn factories ‘first-class; way, way above average’ – February 15, 2012
Thousands line up for iPhone assembly jobs at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou, China plant – January 30, 2012
Foxconn’s 2012 plan: More robots, no layoffs, zero suicides, new factories – November 22, 2011
Apple audit led by COO Tim Cook prompted improvements at Foxconn – February 14, 2011
Media blows it: Foxconn employees face significantly lower suicide risk – May 28, 2010
Yesterday when this story broke, I asked if it was Apple related because of the similarities with a previous Microsoft incident at Foxcon which was widely blamed on Apple.
Reuters always try and spin stories against Apple and this story, just like the previous one, was widely reprinted with the negative references to Apple.
The same thing is happening with the NYT’s – their article today on Apple and taxes is a total hack job. You could insert any companies name in the headline but click bait now means you need to insert “apple” in any headline. Like “9/11 Attacks Planned On Apple Laptop”.
Reuters has a consistently negative slant to its stories about Apple. Why I’m not sure but they are consistent. Once you realize their bias best to just ignore what they have to say.
Reuters has a definite conservative slant to its news – slaps down Maobama every chance it gets.
i think if you do even a minimal amount of research you will find that reuters is owned by rothschild conglomeration. last time i checked the ‘children’ were bankrolling the progressives and the new world order – 0bama et al. to me, this would better explain the diversified attack on all things apple — nyt, doj, wall street hedge funds…
Do the hack jobs while you can NYT and Reuters, your years are numbered. Print media is headed the way of the dodo bird -whatever that was.
Mr. Cook,
It is time to go thermonuclear on the lying, conniving, disingenuous scumbags from Cnet, Reuters et. al who continuesly spout this c**p.
Thank you,
Jax44
I like to see AAPL buy a controlling interest in Reuters and fire the lot of them.
Whats did Apple ever do to you Reuters?
It’s not what did Apple do to Reuters.
It’s what the mass news media want to portray and control in the news.
So many people in the past say “go away with your tinfoil hat”, well this story is a perfect example of how the news media lie and distort the news.
If you disagree, please try and explain yourself on how Reuters is not controlling the news.
It used to be that lawyers were at the top of the most hated list.
I believe reporters and news outlets are close to be the most hated very soon.
hard to top the Federal Reserve as assholes of the century.
More people will click on an article about Apple than Microsoft. So it’s pure market-driven capitalism. Should there be a Ministry of Truth to police the media?
Who will oversee the ministry of Truth? Some faceless politburo worker? Never worked in the past!
Again and Again, it incredible how the all US media is against the most proudly US company.
Every body sees FOXCOM and starts poking apple.
Shoot first ask later, that the media, just a mob.
Wait. Calling CNET and Reuters “scumbags” is doing a disservice to bags filled with scum…
I duly apologize to God fearing scum everywhere .
What about us Romney-fearing scum?
From the article: “The Information Centre for Human Rights said one of the complaints of the workers was that they earned less in Wuhan than they had in their previous jobs.”
It very well could be that Apple’s agreements with Foxconn to increase wages at Apple-related facilities may in the future (and have already) lead to protests at other Foxconn facilities.
Yet somehow Apple likely will be blamed regardless.
Exactly, expect other factories to have strikes as workers complain that Foxconn factories with Apple contracts get paid more! Apple will not only be blamed by the media, but by Chinese factory owners everywhere.
If that is true, just think what the other cos will have to do with their pricing! This could actually help Apple.
The Reuters name used to be associated with
truth and timeliness in reportage. How sad that this once respected news source has been indelibly stained with inaccuracies and actual
news bias. Because of this their words can no longer be trusted. It’s like blaming 911 on the
Russians. Possible but totally untrue.
Or it’s like knowing al-Quaeda was responsible for 911 and then going to war with Sadaam Hussein for it.
+1
We dump the assKenyan in November and his lapdog shit head Holder
You racist fk…
I take everything from the corporate “news” media with a huge grain of salt. EVERYTHING!
Especially when it comes to their reporting about Apple.
What would be nice from this Reuters/CNET drivel is that all Chinese companies have to increase the wages of their workers. Apple can afford it, maybe margins would get to tight for other computer/smartphone companies and Microsoft.
the ‘Exploitation’ of the Foxconn isn’t apple but the slime barrel press, the grant seeking activist groups and Mike Daisey’s of the world who perpetuate lies and half truths to milk it for all it’s worth: page hits and ratings which sell ads, grant money and for Daisey $60-80 tickets.
you get more money putting ‘Apple’ in the headline and exaggerating the situation for ‘story drama’.
they are even worse because they are waving the ‘moralistic’ banner criticizing others while having none of their own.
It seems that the legacy media has picked up on Greenpeace’s tactics of using Apple for attention. Today there’s a story in the NYT about the fact that Apple’s tax attorneys and accountants know what they’re doing, but they’re trying to spin it as if Apple’s snatching money from the government.
-jcr
Greenpeace use fraudulent FUD for fund raising.
Reuters use fraudulent FUD to sell news publications.
“The plant doesn’t have anything to do with Apple. It produces for Microsoft [Xbox 360].”
Well, that seems to make a bit more sense.
If I had to make Microsoft products, I might want to throw myself off of a building too.
LOL!
I suppose the discussion regarding improvement in working conditions had nothing to do with locking the door to the roof and putting railings on the roof.
I note for reference the gushing press bylined out of Seoul that Reuters gives Samsung. For example the search phrase [Reuters Samsung “building on its supremacy”] yields over 33,000 hits, parroting Samsung’s cheesy PR from last fall.
Shouldn’t we be storming the Reuters website calling out the wrongs in the article?!
Maybe we should go to a local Reuters office ourselves with “wake up” signs chanting “wake up” (he he).
Drama-Queens. That’s one way to describe these fake ‘jumpers’. Instead of forming a union, as has been the case across most of the rest of the world, these frauds pretend they’re going to jump. OK then. Jump and prove it. I’m not being cruel. I’m just calling you out.
China: Criminal Nation Hell Hole. Where logic and honesty are meaningless.
Why the anti-Apple FUD???
That’s the subject of a long BOOK. Of course, on this occasion is merely Apple’s celebrity status. It’s loads of fun to bash on the celebrity and post fake headlines about them eating babies or turning into vampires by night or falling into a pit of drunken decline. BlahBlahBarfBarf.
What’s most amusing/sad about this phenomenon is that this is SELF-destructive behavior. The actual victims of the Bash-‘EM FUD and HATE isn’t the celebrity. It’s the self-loathing people who invent and believe this garbage. Haters hate themselves.