NYT Exposes the Identity of Fake Steve Jobs 166
mattatwork writes "NY Times writer Brad Stone figured out the real identity of Fake Steve Jobs. With classic nick names like 'freetards' and 'beastmaster' Fake Steve captured an audience of 700,000 visitors to the site and around 50 emails a day. According to Daniel Lyons, the senior editor at Forbes magazine who maintained the blog, there is no definite plan for the future of the site. 'Mr. Lyons said he invented the Fake Steve character last year, when a small group of chief executives turned bloggers attracted some media attention. He noticed that they rarely spoke candidly. "I thought, wouldn't it be funny if a C.E.O. kept a blog that really told you what he thought? That was the gist of it." Mr. Lyons says he recalled trying out the voices of several chief executives before settling on the colorful Apple co-founder. He twice tried to relinquish the blog, but started again after being deluged by fans e-mailing to ask why Fake Steve had disappeared.'"
Good job, New York Times. (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost as good, Forbes. (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, if only we could get those investigative journalists of yours to apply their talent where it really makes a difference...
Or if Daniel Lyons and Forbes could really understand technical issues and provide informed reporting instead of tired satire. Really, this guy's bad attitude comes across in his day job too.
Re:Darn. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Good job, New York Times. (Score:3, Insightful)
We have Pakistan (our ally) collaborating with the Taliban [indianexpress.com], there are Over 20 million displaced homeless [npr.org] due to floods in India, and let's not mention the hypocrisy of the government at home.
If The New York Times feels that this is a worthy exercise for their investigative reporters.... what has the world come to. Rupert Murdoch owns the WSJ, and I think that everyone knows that Murdoch can't keep his fingers out of the editorial pages of any newspaper he runs. There is hope, however. There are still investigative journalists worth reading out there, here's one: Seymour Hersh [wikipedia.org]
Solved? Or handed on a platter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good job, New York Times. (Score:5, Insightful)
That its did this says nothing about the quality of its coverage of other items. You can't look at every use of a resource as wasteful just because it's not devoted to the single most important item of the day; the breadth of coverage is important too.
Re:Good job, New York Times. (Score:5, Insightful)
You do know that the New York Times has more than one reporter, right? And that it's possible for them to write stories on silly little things like this and still cover the Taliban, homeless, floods, and government? Oh, and even give us a nifty new crossword every day?
Re:Solved? (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel a bit pissed at the NYT for spoiling the party, but I guess it was going to get spoiled sooner or later, and if not the NYT, then some other rag. The race was on.
I pretty much can't stand Mr. Lyons as a journalist, but as a parody SJ he was awesome. Thanks for the lulz, Dan. You'll always be FSJ in our hearts.
Dan Lyons (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:NYT guy wanted revenge (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Real Question /.ers Want to Know... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Good job, New York Times. (Score:5, Insightful)
If The New York Times feels that this is a worthy exercise for their investigative reporters....
Maybe it's the only kind of investigative reporting that they can do these days without being arrested.
Don't scoff - Bush himself went on a rampage after the NYTimes outed his little "go around the courts" wiretapping program.
Re:Actually, it makes a lot of sense... (Score:2, Insightful)
Your statements are as libelous as what you accuse Lyons of, if they are not true.
Weaselly posts like this modded up to +5 are why I rarely read
Re:Good job, New York Times. (Score:3, Insightful)
That was old news in 1999. The Taliban are what happens when the kids that grow up in brutal refugee camps back over the border from Pakistan and come home to turn the entire country into a brutal refugee camp. The links are very deep to different factions in Pakistan - but you can't blame the entire country for it. Other allies such as Algeria get up to far nastier things.
When it comes down to it this article probably only needed a few hours of investigation - the guy went after PJ from Groklaw in a pretty obvious and nasty way which narrowed it down to him or the Amityville horror girl.
Re:Solved? Or handed on a platter? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good job, New York Times. (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got to be kidding. Perhaps you can find some good journalism there, underneath all the bile, slant, and anonymous sources.
He had one big story, and has been trying to recapture the magic ever since.
Re:Dan Lyons (Score:3, Insightful)
And other than the abusive language, what fault do you find with his reasoning? Perhaps you find the name calling so offensive that you don't even want to try and decipher his point. Fair enough. Shall I put it into less offensive language? FSJ's contention is that it is whining to complain that MS is undercutting Linux by charging $3 for a copy of Windows and Office because Linux is free as in beer.
I can understand being turned off by the name calling. If someone is engaging in personal attacks, likely as not, I'll ignore them. But I don't think you should take these attacks personally. I don't take it personally when he makes fun of Mac users, like when he pointed out that they're the sort of people who would pay an extra $500 for something shiny white. But whatever. It's not for me to say how you should feel about someone calling your tribe names.