Are Media Writers Biased Towards Apple?

Art Vanderlay writes "Readers should not be surprised by overcoverage of Apple Computers since the tech writers and columnists for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Fortune are all Mac users. According to John Dvorak of PC Mag, no one seems to point out the connection between the skewed coverage and the existence of this peculiar conflict of interest based on the national writers' use of Macs. He feels the newsroom editors are generally so out of touch that they can't see this bias and are also Mac users." From the article: "This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer. With no Microsoft-centric frame of reference, Microsoft cannot look good. The company essentially brought this on itself with various PR and marketing policies that discouraged knowledgeable coverage. I'll save those complaints for a future gripe session."

In Other News...

[ravenspear]

Several analysts pointed out that John C Dvorak might not be fully qualified to analyze Apple either due to his prolific tendency to spew forth useless garbage completely devoid of any logic or insightful content.

MS Day ????

[MajorDick]

Is this Bill's Birthday or something ?
5 MS Stories on Slashdot homepage, many looking like marketing speak

Slashdot hire a MS PR Guy as of late ?

My Favorite Dvorak Quote

[stelmach]

Dvorak's 1984 view of the Mac

"The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse'. There is no evidence that people want to use these things."

enough said

Re:In Other News...

[karnifex]

prolific tendency to spew forth useless garbage completely devoid of any logic or insightful content.

He is, however, perfectly and innately qualified to speak about Windows.

instead...

[SuperBanana]

I would like to use this opportunity to humbly request a new Article filter - a John Dvorak Filter.

Eh, just read a different columnist. I'm a big fan of Bob Qwerty, he seems to have his head screwed on right.

*runs for cover*

Re:Human Nature also remember

[hackstraw]

"10 percent of computer users are Mac users, but remember, we are the top 10 percent."

- Douglas Adams

And yes, I selected that quote free from any bias whatsoever.

I RTFA

[nine-times]

There are entire newsrooms, such as the one at Forbes, that consist entirely of Macintoshes. Apparently nobody but me finds this weird.

Why would that be weird? Is it weird if the entire newsroom were Microsoft Machines? Would it be weird if they were all Dells?

I often confront these guys with this assertion, and they, to a man (I've never confronted a female reporter about this),

Wait... I just need to stop here. Why do we care if he's ever asked a woman? Ok, forget it, let's go back...

I often confront these guys with this assertion, and they, to a man (I've never confronted a female reporter about this), all say that they use a Mac "because it is better." Right. And that attitude doesn't affect coverage now, does it?

Yeah, so when a tech columnist sits down to write an article about new/cool technology (sort of their job), they choose to write about the technology that they, as professionals, believe to be "better". Yeah, I'm still completely failing to see the problem here.

Microsoft should make some headway with this biased crowd once the fanciful Xbox 360 arrives. It's got a creative GUI, is easy to use and navigate, and kind of has a Mac look to it. It also interfaces perfectly with the iPod. "Oh golly gee whiz wow!" And that feature alone will be the clincher.

If he's so utterly unbiased, why does he care so much when Microsoft will 'get their due'. And, well, yes, it's been a while since a release of Windows or Office, so releasing their first major product in several years will probably get them into tech columns. Having a great GUI and the ability to interface with the most popular MP3 player around certainly won't hurt. So... what's all the whining about?

Go off-topic with John C. Dvorak

Oh, he's not just off-topic, he's irrelevant, and apparently a bit out of his mind as well.

Re:Human Nature

[Anonymous Coward]

You work in Apple marketing, don't you...c'mon...fess up! ;)

Re:So bloke writing for a Windows Mag...

[geoffspear]

He was just trying some superstitious pseudovoodoo there.

He hates Apple, yet everything he ever says about them turns out to be spectacularly false. So he decided to try writing that they'd be successful, in the hopes that they'd immediately go out of business. It didn't work, so he's gone back to bashing them.

Already abusing monopoly

[daBass]

They already seem to be doing that. They are abusing their near-monopoly position in the online music market and the victims of that are the poor record company executives and share holders.

By refusing to increase the price of songs and albums on the iTunes Music Store, these people now have a hard time scraping a living and feeding their children.

I think it is time for the DoJ to step in and end this unfair business practice.

Google + Apple = ...

[phlurg]

As the two favorite /. companies, Google and Apple clearly have synergy. They should merge:

Google + Apple = Goople!

Re:My Favorite Dvorak Quote

[FidelCatsro]

I kind of like this one

Once in a while the system will go into an idle mode, requiring from five minutes to half an hour to unwind. It's weird, and I almost always have to reboot. When I hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, I see that the System Idle Process is hogging all the resources and chewing up 95 percent of the processor's cycles.

Re:Human Nature

[blitz487]

I've never understood the hype for the ipod either. I'm not paying $.99 for poor quality DRM'd music. I have 8000 songs on my home jukebox, legally purchased, some in the form of vinyl that I've enjoyed for 30 years. I have no faith that DRM'd music will be playable even 5 years from now. Ipods won't play .wma music; I'm not paying money for someone else's jihad. I don't wear 'ear buds' because they are a major cause of permanent hearing damage. I never carry a music player while jogging because I prefer to hear cars bearing down on me in time to jump out of the way. And those advertisements of dorks silently bee-bopping around with wires coming out of their ears leave me cold.

Newton

[yroJJory]

It's always lovely to hear Dvorak's extremely biased voice saying shit like this.

After all, the Newton was just a rehash of...well...um...er...Oh yeah! Apple actually DEFINED the term PDA.

Once again, Dvorak is to be ignored. Why do people read his slanted crap anyway?

All this overcoverage of Apple...

[nekoniku]

...just makes me want to THROW A CHAIR!!!

Re:Human Nature

[Anonymous Coward]

I value my time -- that leaves Linux out. I value my productivity -- that omits Windows. I value my sanity, that leaves OS X.

Could you be less vaugue and provide some actual details that would really make this comment insightful? Do you really think your PR terms mean anything to anyone except to those that are in the same position you are trying to come up with something to justify why Apple is better then product X.

By descriptive, please refrain from using slick, it just works, feels good in my hand, looks outstanding, very pleasing as these terms should only be used by a lonely woman to describe a penis, not a person describing the technical advantages of a computing device.

Re:Human Nature

[revscat]

Another slashdotter said it best; You guys (mac users) are way too emotional to be nerds.

For Siddhartha's sake go back and reread your message and ask yourself how emotional you were being.

Re:Human Nature also remember

[Shadarr]

If Douglas Adams is so smart, how come he's dead?

Re:What about slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your links make you look like a smug ass. Like some jerkoff kid who has learned some new jargon and wants to show it off, and thinks that nobody else has ever heard of it. Get over yourself, dork.

Re:My Favorite Dvorak Quote

[micromuncher]

But everyone uses the Dvorak keyboard...

I seem to remember the top letters being S T F U N E W B... Dvorak was ahead of his time.

I stopped reading at...

[kmartshopper]

I stopped reading at: According to John Dvorak