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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Thursday, January 12, 2006

The Media's Crush on Apple

Business Week:

Jobs & Co. spark something bordering on a lovefest among the press. But as the good times roll, are reporters asking the hard questions?

Half the fun in covering Apple is covering the coverage of Apple. The argument has been made that we in the press are a little nuts about Apple. It's a fact. The highs and lows of Jobs & Co. are so dramatic that the erudite prose practically writes itself. And I can't help but think something is wrong with that.

As great a company as Apple computer is -- I'm often as guilty as anyone of falling for the hyperbole -- the pointed, skeptical, analytical, dispassionate, and yes, uncomfortable questions about this unusually influential outfit and its unique, legendary, brilliant, and complicated chief don't get asked often enough. And they should be, more often than they are now. Great companies deserve nothing less.

We seem to be in the midst of a time period when reporters of all stripes are not asking the tough questions (witness the rollover of the American press in the days leading up to the Iraq war). Part of the problem, no doubt, is the Web, where bloggers and other anonymous people can snipe out at their favorite targets and, increasingly, appear more connected with real people than ivory tower media analysts. There's also an immediacy to the Web that you don't get with traditional media, even TV. Today, anyone can be a news reporter or commentator. For Apple specifically, I suggest leaving the love-fest stuff to the fan boys. One way that real journalists can distance themselves from the kids is to try and actually be perceptive. Just a thought.

[ Posted at 12:25 PM | Permalink ]