Press release or review?
I’m not the only one who’s noticed the mainstream press falling over each other to declare their unbridled love for Tiger. At Columbia Journalism Review‘s CJR Daily, Brian Montopoli asks Which of These Things Is Not Like The Other?
It’s Friday, so let’s play a game. It’s called “Press Release or News Story?” The rules are simple: We print two pieces of writing, and you tell us which one is the press release and which the news story. The topic is the new Mac operating system, “Tiger.”
Montopoli turns his critical eye on the Associated Press and concludes that the AP “review” of Tiger is a “fluff job” and “an absolute love letter, apparently written by an Apple aficionado….”
It’s not impossible to write a fair review that’s still positive. According to Montopoli, David Pogue of the New York Times did exactly that in his coverage of Tiger:
Read that piece, which is really a review, and you realize the AP could have said a number of things about the new product, both positive and negative. Instead it gave Apple a valentine: a piece of nearly uncritical PR the company didn’t even have to pay for. The company must be thrilled.
Troll repellent: Pogue’s piece is highly positive about Tiger, and he takes his fair share of deserved dings at Windows. But he knows the difference between well-deserved praise and gushing. If you write reviews of technology products, take note – this is how a pro does it.
On CNBC today, one “IT consultant” was pronouncing the death of Microsoft, and I laughed out loud. Sometimes the business people — often found on CNet — are so obvious in their slants it’s hilarious. P.T. Barnum would be taking lessons from the Apple folks if he lived today.
He’s not the only one…