The Wall Street Journal has published a correction to their article regarding Apple’s iTunes:
“Changing a setting in the preferences panel in iTunes jukebox software allows a user to copy music from CDs into various formats, including MP3. An article in Monday’s Journal Report on Technology quoted an iPod music player owner who implied that iTunes jukebox software copies songs only in the Advanced Audio Coding format. Apple Computer Inc.’s paid download service, the iTunes store, sells songs only in AAC.”
Link here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Wall Street Journal blows it: iTunes only imports ‘weird AAC format,’ iPod only plays Apple formats – July 19, 2005
MMMM…crow tastes yummy.
behold the power of angry Mac users!
The MacDailyLynchMob strikes again. Mediocre journalists beware ….
MDN just pwned the WSJ.
MDN did their job and did it well. Bravo!
That’s what a couple of thousand e-mails will do.
pwned: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pwned
I’d guess that their email box took on the appearance of a forest fire, pointing out the ineptitude of the WSJ’s staff.
Note to journalists: when it come to Apple, get it right or MDN will call you on it. Good job, MDN!
Uh, go us?
I have to say, MacDailyNews has some clout. MacDailyNews forced WSJ to take responsibility and correct their error. Nice job.
Look! Over there at CNN! Over-emphasis on clock speed! C’mon boys! Let’s get ’em!
Cheers to us…but in fairness we should tip our hats to WSJ for the correction. We flooded their mailbox with criticism…maybe we should thank them for acknowledging an oversight?!
I think that this correction was a given being that reporting false information could get them in bigger trouble then emails from Mac users.
I respect them more for doing so. Congrats WSJ for repairing your miss information with facts.
I sent the woman who wrote the original article a mail. It turns out that she had written a correction, it just hadn’t run on time.
“you know, i wrote up a clarification yesterday, and am trying to find
out why it didn’t run today…. if i had, i could have doubtless avoided
the hundreds of emails i’m getting from rabid ipod fans!”
Still, its amusing to think of the response people get when they make errors in print!
Tim Coughlin
http://timcoughlin.typepad.com
hahah , nice one , mdn !
Kudos to the WSJ!!
Their outright errors are few and far between, and they’re prompt in issuing corrections. I wrote to them, as a subscriber, to complain. I’ll feel good about renewing my subscription when it’s up
ah, the power of email. lots of email.
doesn’t mossberg work for wsj? i’m certain he’s a bit embarrassed for his colleague right not, if not the one who called her up and told her what a dumb ass she just played herself out to be.
Can you imagine how many users have a limited experience because they lack the imagination to explore and see what options are available in preferences?
Look around, check things out! It won’t blow up in your face, it’s not Windozzzzze!
MW = based
as in: this is based on personal experience.
“We flooded their mailbox with criticism…maybe we should thank them for acknowledging an oversight?!”
I always think back to the old “Star Trek” letter writing campaign.
For those of you who haven’t heard of this, when the original Star Trek series looked like it was going to be cancelled, fans wrote in to the network asking them not to cancel it. The letters were addressed to people at NBC and looked very non-descript from the outside, which meant they all had to be opened to see what the content was. This was particularly tough for NBC–they ended up opening a million or so letters. So NBC finally announced that the show would be continued and would everybody please stop writing letters.
Well, people were so happy about the show not being cancelled that, once again, they flooded people at NBC with non-descript letters thanking them. According to Gene Roddenberry, someone at NBC called him up and asked him, “Gene, how do you turn them off?!?”
So I just picture a poor writer for the Wall Street Journal calling up Steve Jobs and saying, “Steve! How do you turn them off?!?”
Maybe a thank you wouldn’t be a good idea. Or at least put a “Thanks for the correction” in the title…
Trouble is — nobody reads corrections.
Big deal. So they issued a “clarification” to correct the erroneous perception of an end user. The WSJ still hasn’t corrected all the other wrong things in the original article. A follow up article should be written correcting the mistakes that were made in the original article and telling people that consumers really aren’t as confused as the original article makes them out to be.
The Wall Street Journal is supposed to be one of the most respected and careful outfits in the business. Where were the fact checkers? Where was the editor? This is not the Lower Podunk Outhouse Observer we are talking about. This is Wall Street, NYC, etc. A Blue State full of highly educated, liberal, worldly and sophisticated self-proclaimed elite. The Ivy-League educated intelligentsia that look down upon those of us out in Fly-Over Country.
Just as I thought, it’s all a bunch of BullSh*t. Just think these folks missed Enron, MCI WorldCom, Tyco, etc. and it was right under their noses. If a financial paper cannot report on finance, why do you think it would get technology right? Out here in Fly-Over Country the papers have people who double check facts BEFORE they print them, the editors review the content and the reporters sometimes even know what they are writing about.
Before MDN readers break their arms patting themselves on the back, maybe they ought to make sure their claims of influence are true. Don’t they believe in checking their facts as they so firecely reminded the Right Wing J… er, I mean Wall Street Journal, to do?
I think so.
Maybe it was me! Huh, did you think of that?
What about the fact that it was also implied that the iPod only plays Fairplay-AAC files? Where’s the correction for that? Personally, I was more worried about this than the importing business… Maybe it’s because that part wasn’t a quote from someone else… that was the author herself.
–mAc