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April 12, 2005
Newspapers vs Apple
While they haven't moved at the speed of light, it appears that the mainstream media have finally started to catch on to the fact that Apple's court action against those online reporters - which our colleague, Mac Man described [SIGH] as "fair enough" - represents a disturbing threat to the practice of journalism.
Eight of California's largest newspapers and The Associated Press have submitted a brief asking that the online publishers be allowed to keep their sources confidential, despite the judge's ruling that ISPs turn over the reporters' email, to help Apple identify the source of leaks.
They believe that the decision could impair the ability of all journalists to report important news.
``Recent corporate scandals involving Worldcom, Enron and the tobacco industry all undoubtedly involved the reporting of information that the companies involved would have preferred to remain unknown to the public,'' the 38-page brief stated. ``Just because a statute seeks to protect secrecy of such information does not mean that the First Amendment protections provided to the news media to inform the public are wiped away.''
Posted by cw at April 12, 2005 10:38 AM
Comments
Don't get me wrong, I like Gary Barker aka macman, but his copy is more often than not like reading a sermon by the preacher of the church of the Mac, rather than critical journalism. I'm not a big fan of Macs and don't enjoy working with them but hey that's me.
But its utter nonsense that they can do no wrong, never bugger up, are always superior in every way, and Apple's every offering should be treated as manna from heaven.
I don't mind if the copy is all about Macworld and even always assumes they are better than Windows (if Mac users actually used Windows they might discover there are a number of improvements those rip off merchants at MS have made, the three button mouse and scroll wheel spring to mind) but can't there be some critical distance. Is every new product from Apple yet another step on the road to heaven? Must the quest for conversion of the unbelievers override everything.
Sometimes I look at the Macman column and others like it and look in vain for the "Advertising Feature" running head at the top of the page...
Then again given Apple's scandalous approach to online reporters it would seem that this sort of copy is the only type they expect to see, and for free as well!!
Posted by: tflip at April 12, 2005 02:45 PM