“How do most companies die? They continually shoot themselves in the foot. So ends the once prestigious Consumer Reports,” Kate MacKensie writes for PixoBebo. “The Consumer Union publication lost its way and succumbed, not to the internet, or better publications, but to its own vanity and ill mannered, illogical, and factually deficient reviews.”
“Through the years, Consumer Reports has been a haven for seemingly unbiased, reasonable product reviews,” MacKensie writes. “In their quest for continued glory in the face of the faceless internet reviews by the millions, CR decided to seek publicity first, and deal with facts later (not even second).”
“Why did Consumer Reports jump out in front of Apple’s iPhone 4 antenna reception? Because the company sensed a wave of publicity. But it backfired. They shot themselves in the foot,” MacKensie writes. “And they did it again with the new iPad. Hot? Or, merely incidentally warm, but a non-issue since every other device can get similarly warm? Consumer Reports failed to stick with the facts on Apple’s iPhone, and failed again with the iPad.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Fishwrap for fish desecrators.
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The very reason why I did not renew my subscription!!!
I thought only people who were 60 plus years old subscribed.
In other news, Consumer Reports now can’t recommend breathing. It seems that some air has this ‘pollution’ stuff in it.
That’s blatant ageism. What other minorities do you ridicule?
… getting old (what are the options?) or FOR getting old (bonus to wisdom, maybe?).
Most of what CR does is worth using – if it relates to a product you are considering. Using … as one of several resources.
CR is not dead – yet. They need to fire some folk in IT or they WILL be.
Please show me any data that shows the average age of the subscribers to Consumer Reports. My anecdotal results are likely extremely accurate. If you think that pointing out that older people subscribe to CR and other magazines is ageism then you think that my observations are inaccurate and unfair. I made no judgements about older people being ‘ridiculous’.
If they stick to non-tech products… let them live…
The media here in Indonesia just love to hate Apple so much, they quote Consumer Reports articles all the time but never say anything when the facts are out.
Speaking of sensationalism, this headline and article make it sound like Consumer Reports has gone out of business, which is not the case. I guess that is the author’s prediction, and unbiased journalism is the casualty of all of this.
+∞!
I dumped both print and web subscriptions after their iPhone 4 bombastic review. CR is really aggressive in trying to get my business back. I keep returning the postage paid envelopes with nothing enclosed. It’s just one way to say screw off you jerks.
Fishwrap for smelly fish does little to mask the smell.
CR stinks.
I canceled my subscription to CR many, many years ago when they gave poor reviews to a product I OWNED, USED, and VALUED above any others in its category. At that point I knew there was something “fishy” going on at that company, for they were wrong, wrong, egregiously wrong in their assessment. How could this be, I asked? The answer was easy: Their personal and philosophical biases disallowed any objective, fair evaluation of the product I had known and loved over the years.
Corruption, thy name is Consumer Reports. DO NOT TRUST THEM.
With ya, except I think it’s that they are personally and philosophically biased toward money salting the tail, and Apple won’t play.
Understandable, that they need the extra jack to maintain those expensive Potemkin laboratories.
CR = Cynical Racketeers
CR – as biased as the NYT.
Certainly they both have their own agendas.
And MDN will cheer both on should they say something aligned with MDN’s world view.
I do understand CR’s problem. Since the advent of the Internet, reporting of products is no longer the sole domain of CR. There are many competitors on the Web that could give better or worse reporting of products and this has impacted CR bread-and-butter business. With many competitors running around in its once hallowed field, there is the temptation to cut corners by choosing a niche. CR has chosen to dispense with unbiased reporting and entered into the niche of nitpicking popular products and bashing Apple has become its new bread-and-butter vocation.
CR is a dinosaur right up there with Readers Digest and TV Guide. I’m shocked that so many people still get CR.
There auto ratings are also massively incorrect and bias.
Nice, but I want the major publications and news media to call out CR also. That will put them in their place and perhaps do some real factual work in the future.
I lost all faith in CS back in ’83, when 5 of their 7 top SLR camera picks were discontinued. And they screwed up details on the 2 that were currently in production and selling in stores.
And just now I lost faith in me for the CS instead of CR typo
Consumer Sucks
Consumer Stupid
Consumer Slime
Consumer Sneaky
Consumer Snowjob
Consumer ScotchTape (okay, it was duck tape. I’m stretching)
Works for me.
CR reviews are terribly biased – My boyfriend’s inverted Samsung tablet kept our scones much warmer while waiting for our tea to steep, than did the iPad. If CR would have done the computer industry standardized “4-minute warmed scone comparison test”, it would have been obvious.
I grew up with CR in the home, and depended upon it for nearly every purchase over $100. It served well. But branding the iPhone as unacceptable for a known issue with all cell phones and refusing to change the rating when they were proven wrong, was more upsetting than watching your overpriced, cardboard-like, Starbuck’s scone fall to the floor jam-side down.
Just like Starbuck’s “introducing” normally brewed coffee after every one has tired of their burnt concoctions, CR should be retooling their review processes. Also like Starbuck’s, they can start by extracting that holier-than-thou attitude, starting at the top.
For those concerned: CR is not actually dead or dying. It just SUCKS. (Well, except for toasters and such like 20th century gadgetry).
IOW: For TechMavens, CR is Dead-To-Us.
I picture them as a gang of very old gents who have no comprehension of new fangled technology. They therefore have a default bad attitude and look for obsurities to criticize. Their behavior fits perfectly into my definition of GEEZERLY. 😛
Now if only the sheeple, who are equally scared of new tech, would read qualified sources of review information. On the other hand, CR’s ignorant BS hasn’t affected the market very much. The iPhone 4 was a massive success. The new iPad (3) is a massive success. The alternative crapware is on the decline or DOA. The world still rotates despite CR’s attempts to stop it. 😿 🙀
Amazon.com reviews are far more useful than CR. CR has NEVER done their computer reviews well, going back to Apple II and TRS-80 days… and their car reviews… PU. What, are they run by the Yakuza?
Classic…. Truth Be Told. 🙂
CR has always has a strange thing about Apple. I noticed the dust building on my floppies before the first iMac shipped, but they continued to insist that anyone who bought a mac needed to by a floppy drive, right up until PC makers started dropping the floppy as well.