“The September 7 Apple Event raised some troubling questions for many tech journalists and their prewritten narratives,” Daniel Eran Dilger writes for AppleInsider. “It’s almost as if they’d been caught in a huge lie and were now forced to ad-lib a toddler-like series of distractions in a bid to avoid any consequences to their reputations. They’re often wrong, here’s why.”
“The real surprise was the catastrophic collapse of the narratives invented by the collective tech media. Their unflattering portrayal of Apple, painted throughout 2016, ended up looking like it had been modeled after an entirely different subject when exposed to the reality presented in Apple’s straightforward executive-level talent show, particularly when observing the subsequent reaction of consumers to Apple’s news,” Dilger writes. “For instance, why is the Cupertino company now struggling to meet pre-order demand for its new iPhone 7 models when everyone knew the next iPhones would be totally boring even before having seen them? The tech media and Apple’s most plugged in analysts were very clear on this all year long.”
“The quality of the media coverage following this week’s Apple Event raises the question: are journalists operating under the assumption that their audience is universally stupid or are they just borderline basic themselves?,” Dilger asks. “Why doesn’t the tech media seek to clearly journal events rather than writing dramatic narratives of comedy and tragedy?”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: These so-called “journalists” are either writing, or told to write, for what they think generate clicks. They concoct narratives and twist the “news” to fit them.
The troubling thing is, the “tech journalists” are the least of the problem. The issue of concocting narratives and twisting the “news” to fit them is a cancer throughout “journalism” today.
My favorite thing the press has been saying all year (and are still saying) is “nobody wants iPhone 7 because it doesn’t have a new design.” They say this every release. What they mean is, “It’s still a rectangle.” Yes, it’s still a rectangle. But nobody is going to mistake my shiny jet black iPhone 7 Plus with dual camera and solid state Home button for an iPhone 6 or 6S. Looks like a new design to me.
Until Apple comes out with a circular or hexagonal phone, the press will keep saying that whatever Apple releases is not a new design.
Journalism hasn’t attracted the best and brightest for some time.
Journalism is dead
It’s not a big deal for journalists, they reported the story as is, but that’s not what sells.
It’s the bloggers\analysts\columnists that have create and sell a story regardless of the facts to get eyeballs on their site. Facts/truth don’t matter, only clicks. It would be like complaining the Enquirer isn’t trustworthy. If you follow the links and support their model, don’t complain about the results…
““Why doesn’t the tech media seek to clearly journal events rather than writing dramatic narratives of comedy and tragedy?”
Found myself asking this same question many times during the Summer Olympics? Especially since the Olympics will generate its own drama and comedy if they would let it.
It’s a simple game I like to call “clicks”. If you want people clicking on your stuff, talk about Apple. Good or bad, you’ll get’em. The playing field is extremely saturated in that you get a lot of bad writers, but again, if you say apple, you’ll get the clicks. Usually tune out most of the junk and focus my read’ery on journalists/media that I respect (not necessarily agree with all the time).
Side note: Every time MDN brings up these bad journalists and showcases one of their stories, they (the journalists) sure as heck get rewarded with a lot of clicks. Game. Set. Match. Shall we play again?
My problem with text media they think everything is price sensitive. If Apple had created a phone that was regularly catching fire the outcry would have been awful. The techmedia barely mentioned it. American media has come to hate success. They no longer like winners they love to make winners look bad unless of course they are writing about Donald Trump. When I heard the guy dissing iPhone 7 on the CBS news app on my Apple TV I deleted it and will not be reinstalling it. I just had enough of crap media in America.
Everything is price sensitive. Count yourself lucky if you have the luxury of living life without looking at price tags.
I don’t agree with you on your exception to how Apple is portrayed in the media.
Samsung has been roundly criticized for their battery problems and their stock price has been hammered. What more do you expect?
The common theme with MDN is that all media is bad. Guess what, MDN: you ARE THE MEDIA. But you’re so self-absorbed that you think everyone must act like you do. Get real. Apple isn’t the only game in town. It’s a more competitive market than ever, people like choices. Different people have different needs. So just because you can easily pick out some biased media, you yourself are far from being objective too. Truly objective media does exist and they don’t give Apple a free pass on everything. Pogue immediately comes to mind.
Apple’s shitty marketing isn’t helping anything. Sometimes I think “the media”, while certainly far from being great, receives way too much credit for Apple’s underwhelming rate of product releases under Cook. You expect universal praise for Apple when you like what they do, but Apple will let its products die on the vine and wonder why people complain about the sour grapes. DUH, Apple did it to themselves. If you want to accuse the media of anything, accuse them of being to slow to be critical of people in power.
Remember that lying cheater Lance Armstrong? Media darling when he was winning, despite numerous people stepping forward declaring him a fraud. It took years before the authorities and the media did its diligence and finally got the facts out. The same will be done for Cook. It will be years before his lack of leadership will be discovered and reported. His incremental updates of the iPhone have been fine, but it’s really Jobs’ app store that prints the money. Everything else is becoming more bureaucratic at the ivory towers within Apple. The innovative underdog spirit is long gone. Don’t blame the media or wall street when sales of Macs, iPads, watches, Apple TVs, etc are now flat. Objective evidence shows the products are overpriced or underperforming compared to the competition. Apple has to get BOTH the price and the performance correct, at multiple price points. The competition does.
How much time will it be before the for the iPhone and the Mac to drop to irrelevant market and profit shares? Could be another decade. Apple has so much momentum with the iPhone that nobody will bother to mention that one by one, practically all of Apple’s other products are no longer class-leading. But Cook’s not moving Apple forward on all fronts. the iPhone 7 is just an incremental upgrade that will replace existing iPhones in the market, not draw many new people to the iPhone platform. Meanwhile the Mac is a burning platform.
Finally, if Apple takes 3+ years to update and iPad or Apple TV or 5+ years to update a Mac while other manufacturers release updates in 24 months or less, then expectations MUST be higher for Apple. They took the extra time, they charge the highest prices, it damn well better be polished and ready for prime time. If Apple released a new product every few months, then it would be far easier to meet expectations.
What a load of completely incorrect crap, Mike. It is completely and utterly wrong. If you hate so much then fcuk off and go read Android Whiner Daily News. Friggin’ asshole
Whatever. I may not agree with everything he says but he usually makes me look at multiple sides of the issues. That’s a good thing to ward off groupthink.
Your post is juvenile and would be deleted on any properly moderated forum. Please come back when you have something to discuss with civility.
Fact is, M!ke is talk!ng sh!t as per usua!.
Android Whiner Daily News is where he needs to fsck off to.
http://www.androidanthonywhinerdailynews.com
Fact is, Mike points out some inconvient truths vulgar fanboys can’t handle.
MDN, clean up your boards of anonymous attackers who aren’t even discussing the article.
Mike: Apple is now big, and that means Apple is now slow. Get used to it.
Apple ‘big’ is not a problem with limited and elegant product lines.
Apple ‘big’ IS a problem with a new Spaceship Campus they do not need and thousands of additional employees releasing half-baked products that no longer lead in some categories, iPhone being the exception. But Macs, pitiful against the competition.
Streamline the employees (example Titan) and the bureaucracy as well as they have streamlined their designs, website and product lines.
Sounds like you are excusing Apple for the many lapses Mike
pointed out because they are BIG?
Big is better: More resources, more money, more talent. So what’s the problem? I’ll give you a hint, starts with a B.
” If you want to accuse the media of anything, accuse them of being to slow to be critical of people in power.
Remember that lying cheater Lance Armstrong? ”
The present day gold star example, is — Hillary.
there no such thing as responsible, accountable journalism anymore.. if there ever was to start with.
journslism = manipulation of people and their behavior…. its just another tentacle of the rich and powerful.
truth is irrelevant.
The “noble profession” of journalism is an invention of the ruling class, not a High Calling, like some sort of secular priesthood. The Pulitzer and Nobel prizes, along with more than two dozen lesser prizes in writing, carry some high moral lustre but are just awards from a panel of men who are easily influenced. It’s the same with the Oscars, the Emmies, or the Hugos. Read the damn stuff yourself and make up your own mind.
“Noble profession” of journalism has been DEAD since the late 1980s when the politically correct cancer spread through newsrooms everywhere.
And present day, even worse, when a New York Times columnist writes a hit piece on Trump URGING all left biased media, not even hiding it anymore, to do everything they can to prop up the Clinton’s.🤐
And the journo prizes you mention were once noble, again, decades earlier, but have been infected with the same PC 🐂💩.
Thank the maker for conservative and moderate media giving voice to the silent majority … USA! 🇺🇸
NTTM.
(Never Trust The Media)
EVER…………
Never trust Moronic Asshole Mike above
Absolutely. If things keeps happening, there will come a time when people will stop reading their articles.
“You can fool some people all the time, and most people some time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”.
Sorry correction ” You can fool some people most of the time and most people sometimes, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”.
It remains true, however, that you can FOUL all of the people all of the time.