The spokesperson said it "on the record" without being named? That's not on the record - it's off the record.
I call BS.
You guys want to believe it, go ahead. I don't. And if I'm wrong I will post my apologies to all on this forum.
Good to see DED is propagating the spin as usual though.
Oops... Kresh beat me to it.
Anonymous sources can speak on the record. It signifies they can be quoted directly, but not attributed due to fear of retribution. It is a time tested way of getting hard information that will stand up to further fact finding, or the on the record commenter becomes at risk for being openly outed as a liar by the reporter or editors.
The spokesperson and reporter are laying reputation on the line by printing on-the-record explicitly, that is a mark of journalism rather than blogism.
Oh you had me and I was willing to take my lumps till you got to here.
Companies don't flat out lie very frequently? Are you serious? Enron, BP, Microsoft, ever heard of them? How about the recent banking crisis, ninja loans, and the astronomical lies they were telling about the toxic debt they were passing around.
To try and claim the moral high ground for any public traded company in this day and time gives me the giggles. Apple has a lot to lose if it is realized they laid an egg with their flagship product and I don't doubt for even a microsecond that if a lie would get them out of it that they would lie their tails off.
OffTopic: There are a few liars in there, but not too many. Mostly there are a couple individuals doing as much as they can to cover-up problems from the rest of the company, then when the house of cards falls apart, it just falls apart. The "company" Enron didn't lie, a couple VPs and the CFO cooked up a nifty, and at the time legal accounting trick. The CEO and board was greedy so they didn't look any farther, just kept spending lavishly on what looked like a golden goose that would make more money than anyone ever dreamed so the spending wouldn't be noticed. Then it all fell apart.
The company spokesmen didn't lie, the CEO didn't lie about the dealings. The damage was all done legally! It didn't become a legal problem until after the fact when failure to disclose the nastiness's risk was used as the lens of business accountability. Yes the folks involved deserved the legal trouble and convictions they got, but they are the VAST minority in the company and business as a whole. The rest got burned for lack of accountability, not lying.
Why am I splitting hairs? If you want to clean something up you have to understand what the mess is first. Mislabeling the mess will only make any attempts to fix it ineffective and possibly more harmful than good.
Now go back up and read what I said about Enron, here I'll quote it:
Quote:
The damage was all done legally! It didn't become a legal problem until after the fact when failure to disclose the nastiness's risk was used as the lens of business accountability.
Now think about AIG, who almost single handedly created the credit default swap industry that provided top cover and enabled the mortgage crisis to actually become a crisis. It was the SAME PROBLEM. Legal operations without disclosure of risk!
Why is that a problem? We fried Enron for being corporate liars, not for non-disclosure of risk, which would than have also created regulatory controls on risk we still seem to be avoiding. The Enron regulatory solution was making CEO's sign affidavits saying they weren't lying. How much is that helping now???
Don't look for people to screw after the fact because you think they lied, they almost always didn't. Look for the rules that allowed them to do the damaging things legally in the first place, and fix those.
I look forward to the day when internet journalism matures and becomes a worthy replacement for paper based journalism. It takes time for the cream to rise to the top, and for this new industry to police itself, and for consumers to demand better. If you look at newspapers in the 19th century you'll see much of what you see on websites and blogs today. Rumors published as fact, personal attacks of the most vicious kind, boosterism, payoffs, you name it. In short, Yellow Journalism. Someday there'll be a "website of record," a place where they pride themselves on accuracy, fairness, and neutrality. Where stories are vetted, edited, and rigorously fact checked before posting for all to see.
A guy can dream, can't he?
I'm with you, but I think it's only going to get worse because it's getting worse in traditional media as well. True balance and fairness doesn't sell. Grey areas don't sell. Sophisticated arguments don't sell. Simplified name calling and labeling sells. So when the media decides someone is a good guy or a bad guy, it's very simple for the average person to understand. And what the media really loves is a good guy who they can take down and make a bad guy. This also applies to politics and is something the Republicans understand much better than the Democrats do. The Republicans are actually genius at this, turning "liberal", "socialist" and even "sympathetic" into dirty words. (I forget the campaign, but in the 1950s, a candidate accused his opponent of being a heterosexual. The heterosexual lost. Nixon's campaign staff printed up literature about his opponent, Helen Gahagan-Douglas, on pink paper. (Commies were "pinkos"). That worked too.) That's what headlines are about: telling the whole story in four words. Republicans brilliantly do it in one.
In spite of the fact that more people in the U.S. are attending college than ever before, we seem to be getting incredibly dumber in almost every respect: analysis of arguments, understanding of politics, the value we place on learning and literature, etc. There are other forums I participate in and in some of them, 80% of the contributors sound like they learned English as a second language. Even some of the most supposedly financially successful people in this country (and I won't name names here) don't seem to have basic writing skills.
We are focused totally on meaningless trivia. People obtain college degrees who can't tell you the approximate year the Civil War started or the name of the Vice-President or even who we fought against in World War II, but they're genius at sending out 200 tweets a day or what Lady Gaga is up to or whether the stars of Twilight are romantically involved. And we let these people vote. Want to see something really scary? Go to the site http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?page_id=9798 Then ask yourself whether you think these people show up in voting booths and whether such people are interested in sophisticated argument.
Look at this site. While one can argue that the reporting is relatively balanced, the responses generally aren't. They tend to be isolated into "Jobs is a fool and Apple will fail and you're all idiots for buying Apple" and to "Apple/Jobs is my God."
In today's society, grown men dress like little boys and live with their parents until they're 40 and on forums like this one, people call each other names like they're still 10 and in the playground. We're becoming less mature and our media is a reflection of who we are, so I think internet journalism will continue to become less mature as well. We used to make distinctions as to how we behaved when we stood on a street corner and how we behaved in places such as offices and schools, but now we make no distinctions whatsoever and in forums like this one, people seem to have no problem whatsoever with using "WTF" as the totality of their argument.
And just as many people can't tell the difference between Fox or MSNBC commentators and news, they no longer perceive a difference between bloggers and journalism.
So yes, you can dream. I think we'll see mature journalism on the internet just around the same time that Apple loses its arrogance and paranoia.
I'm with you, but I think it's only going to get worse because it's getting worse in traditional media as well. True balance and fairness doesn't sell. Grey areas don't sell. Sophisticated arguments don't sell. Simplified name calling and labeling sells. So when the media decides someone is a good guy or a bad guy, it's very simple for the average person to understand. And what the media really loves is a good guy who they can take down and make a bad guy.
What distinguishes this set of alleged emails from Jobs from the many others over the last several months is that someone at a major publication (Fortune) was prompted to look into their authenticity.
No one at Fortune bothered to fact check "You're holding it wrong" or any of the others, but somehow these far less interesting emails at BGR warranted more attention.
Does anyone here have an opinion on why Fortune decided to investigate only these lest interesting emails but none of the others? What prompted their call to Apple? Or did the call happen the other way around, as someone in this thread suggested earlier?
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I think we'll see mature journalism on the internet just around the same time that Apple loses its arrogance and paranoia.
Yes they do. I also reserve the right to discount everything they say.
And sites that wish to present themselves as credible should cite sources like BGR as their source and report it as the unsubstantiated "fact" that click whores like BGR specialize in.
This whole thing was blown *way* out of proportion by a bunch of media whoring self serving jerks. I keep hoping the average person will see this sensationalistic crap for what it is, but the general populace loves a good story - even if it is fake and causes harm in the real world.
Humanity at it's finest \
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Fox News has set legal precedent for that in US court (!): you can't sue the media for printing things that are inaccurate, even if they are purposely, known lies.
Really? That would be a fascinating court case indeed - can you point me to it?
The voracity of you statement aside, I'm pretty sure if Apple wanted to peruse it they have a very clear cut case of libel. Personally I hope they go after them as the "everything goes and to hell with civility" that is the norm on the Internet is growing very old.
What distinguishes this set of alleged emails from Jobs from the many others over the last several months is that someone at a major publication (Fortune) was prompted to look into their authenticity.
No one at Fortune bothered to fact check "You're holding it wrong" or any of the others, but somehow these far less interesting emails at BGR warranted more attention.
Does anyone here have an opinion on why Fortune decided to investigate only these lest interesting emails but none of the others? What prompted their call to Apple? Or did the call happen the other way around, as someone in this thread suggested earlier?
A better question is -- why didn't BGR verify their authenticity, as Fortune did? The answer is actually an obvious one. It is because BGR is not a source of journalism, and Fortune is. The first rule of journalism is to verify, to find more than one source for information. Do journalists sometimes fail to follow this rule? Sure, but that's usually called a mistake. But the untrained (and unprofessional) publishers of web sites like BGR aren't even aware of the rule, so they never follow it.
Someday there'll be a "website of record," a place where they pride themselves on accuracy, fairness, and neutrality. Where stories are vetted, edited, and rigorously fact checked before posting for all to see.
Unfortunately that costs money. People don't want to pay subscriptions because there is "so much free content - I can get news anywhere!" and they also block ads left and right, so how are you going to fund your vetting, editing and fact checking?
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A guy can dream, can't he?
And that's all it will be without a sustainable business model. Up until recently newspapers used to fund all of the above with classified ads - and Craigslist has pretty much killed that business. I'm not assigning blame - just laying out why we are in the sad state of affairs we are in now.
In short, when enough people want what you want, it will happen because there will be enough demand to make it profitable and worth doing. Sadly too few people really wish to be informed about things beyond what they consider their immediate sphere of influence.
Unfortunately the ants are vastly outnumbered by grasshoppers \
it's called the ignore list. use it and stop replying or quoting said alleged troll. Cause remember, trolls by their nature want attention. and even say "shut up your troll" is attention.
I don't care if people reply to trolls, just stop quoting their entire posts! If you want to waste your time in a fruitless enterprise, so be it - but don't force the rest of us to continually scroll past their inane blather by quoting it.
And AppleInsider ranks up there too. They dish out quite a bit of BS stories, just spreading rumors from bloggers that claim to be journalists...like always referencing Gizmodo, etc.
But at least I know where I am and what I am getting when I visit AI. And they do cite their sources like Gizmodo so I can (and routinely do) choose to discount it.
What's stupid is that mainstream sites will pick a story up and then use a generic "online news sites report..." or other such nonsense. Those of us who are jaded by the reality of the Internet might discount it as soon as we hear their citation, but even those of us who are jaded may not pay attention because it comes from a source we otherwise trust.
Here's the real message for "legitimate" main stream media - guard the trust we have in you jealously or you will loose what little of it that remains. The hap-hazard way news in general is reported (and no, this isn't solely a purview of Fox, despite the ax many obviously have to grind with them) is the larger story.
To me this is the biggest loss of traditional newspaper journalism. At least with an in depth story in a newspaper they have enough space to report in depth and make a case. You loose that in a less than 3 minute piece over the air or in a snippet on some online site.
And the iP4 crosses the line as it currently stands.
Based on what?
Anandtec concluded the iPhone 4 is better than the HTC for reception, so I'm not sure what line your crossing - unless it's reliance on an on-screen display that every cell phone manufacturer pretty much admits is not really useful for anything but feels compelled to put there since people need to have something to look at.
Did you stop by the BGR site and look at the the screen captures and header shots? Lots of detail so if Apple's spokesperson is fibbing, it'll be tricky to explain.
Sigh. A screen shot of a fake header is still fake.
As someone else pointed out, the only way to resolve this is with encryption (i.e. something like SMIME)
Since Apple has far more to loose than BGR if there is any fakeness going on here, I think I will apply a little Occam's Razor and conclude that BGR is the problem, not Apple.
Of course if you have a perpetual ax to grind against Apple or you just like to stir up stuff, that's not nearly as fun as accusing Apple of conspiracy - but really, what is more likely?
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The plot thickens.
Only as a legend in small minds. In lieu of a tin foil hat smiley I
That they may be fakes is entirely possible, while the fact that they're available for scrutiny at least allows some measure of forensic examination.
What the heck is "forensic examination" of files with an unsecured chain of custody?
Forensic examination would be pulling logs from an Apple mail server that show that in a controlled environment there is a system in place to ensure their integrity.
I doubt you could get anything "forensic" out of an operation like BGR.
This isn't CSI, this is the real world and in the real world there are concepts of logic and fact, not fantasy and wishing.
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We wait with bated breath at the outcome.
Speaking of fantasy and wishing...
Although if Apple does go after them for libel, you may get your wish. But even if Apple does, I wouldn't hold my breath - they will more than likely fold like a house of cards and we may never know the details - other than they were reckless idiots.
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As a sideshow to the main event though, it has it's own measure of mystery and deception, n'est pas?
No, it just further demonstrates deception, greed and stupidity. Rather tawdry and boring, actually.
That they may be fakes is entirely possible, while the fact that they're available for scrutiny at least allows some measure of forensic examination.
That incorrectly presumes anyone here is interested in finding out the truth. Why bother examining the facts when you can just have a good ol' fashioned lynching instead?
This also applies to politics and is something the Republicans understand much better than the Democrats do. The Republicans are actually genius at this, turning "liberal", "socialist" and even "sympathetic" into dirty words.
So Democrats never toss around "conservative", "fascist" and other concepts? And your railing against intellectual laziness?
Talk about ironic!
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In spite of the fact that more people in the U.S. are attending college than ever before, we seem to be getting incredibly dumber in almost every respect: analysis of arguments, understanding of politics, the value we place on learning and literature, etc.
The problem is critical thinking is a tool. It's not something that can be taught like facts or math skills. And to truly hone it you have to use it often, read voraciously and expose yourself to ideas that you may not agree with. Heck, you might even have to accept that every once and a while your sacred cow may not even be that sacred! All it takes is looking at Internet communities to discover just how popular that is with people.
Internet echo chamber indeed.
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There are other forums I participate in and in some of them, 80% of the contributors sound like they learned English as a second language.
That's because it's socially acceptable to write like an idiot. If someone points out bad spelling or language use they are a "grammar nazi" or worse, a square (or <insert other pejorative here>)
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Even some of the most supposedly financially successful people in this country (and I won't name names here) don't seem to have basic writing skills.
In some ways computers have been wonderful tools. But in others they have really done damage to basic intellectualism. In reading, I do notice my vocabulary and spelling has decreased significantly because I no longer read. I browse on the Internet, reading snippets (of often malformed english) here and there. When I actually read books it was much different. I was in a different frame of mind - more focused and in tune to what I was doing. I've been saying I am going to read less on the computer and go back to reading at least a little the "old fashioned way" - thanks for giving me the impetuous to do so!
And it's not just reading. Words are cheap. When you can type out at a keyboard and make wholesale edits with the whack of a mouse or stroke of a few keys, you don't have to pay attention much to what you are doing. Gone are the days of typewriters and carbon where every action was a deliberate one or you had to re-do lots of work! The discipline of writing has shifted, that's for sure. I'm not saying I want to go back to the typewriter, but there needs to be some way to capture a little of the deliberation of old.
Talk about another ironic moment, forum writing like this is probably the worst for enforcing the "off the cuff" and "little forethought" habits as well. Ack!
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We are focused totally on meaningless trivia. People obtain college degrees who can't tell you the approximate year the Civil War started or the name of the Vice-President or even who we fought against in World War II, but they're genius at sending out 200 tweets a day or what Lady Gaga is up to or whether the stars of Twilight are romantically involved. And we let these people vote.
Sadly this is nothing new, nor will it ever likely change. The methods and means for triviality may change but it will always be there.
Personally I see the future as predicted in several Sci-Fi stories where everyone jacks into a virtual universe and then goes extinct from inaction.
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We're becoming less mature and our media is a reflection of who we are, so I think internet journalism will continue to become less mature as well.
It ebbs and flows. It's definitely ebbing now...
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We used to make distinctions as to how we behaved when we stood on a street corner and how we behaved in places such as offices and schools, but now we make no distinctions whatsoever and in forums like this one, people seem to have no problem whatsoever with using "WTF" as the totality of their argument.
lol - I used to have a link to an essay from the 1800's complaining that society was becoming more "casual". While I don't really wish to go back to formal cards for introductions, courting and other concepts are are pretty arcane and foreign, I do agree that there is a more constructive middle ground that as a society we are leaning a little to far towards the opposite spectrum.
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And just as many people can't tell the difference between Fox or MSNBC commentators and news, they no longer perceive a difference between bloggers and journalism.
I don't know about that. On MSNBC and Fox it's pretty easy to pick out the editorial content from the hard journalism since the legitimate commentators tend to emphasize their commentary.
What I have a problem with are journalistic outlets that are traditionally "hard only" editorializing. Much of the grinding against Fox and MSNBC is from people who are simply intolorant towards the expression of views that are contrary to their own. It's less an issue of the news and entertainment organizations and more an expression of their own immaturaty and selfeshness.
No one has the right to not be offended or challenged in their thinking
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So yes, you can dream. I think we'll see mature journalism on the internet just around the same time that Apple loses its arrogance and paranoia.
Mature Journalism is an oxymoron.
Apple is not arrogant or paranoid. What many people express as arrogance is Apple confidently stating: "This is our product, it's the best we feel it can be. If you agree, please buy it. If not, feel free to go to our competitors".
That's a far cry from "Apple is arrogant because they refuse to produce a trash under $500 PC - all these other manufactures can do it so Apple is just being arrogant and elitist!" Apple is about experience, first and foremost - and the experience of a cheap PC - if you are honest - is a pretty crappy one. So they choose to not be in that space. If you are willing to put up with the experience of a cheap PC, more power to you. It just won't be with Apple. That's not arrogant, it's discriminatory. They know they can't be all things to all people, so they choose to focus on that which they can excel at. It must be pretty smart, since with a fraction of the market they have vaulted past the likes of Microsoft and just about everyone else.
Same thing with features on phones, the app store vetting process and all the other things that people love to pillory them for. The "walled garden" stuff with Apple is the most amusing. If you don't like it, don't buy any iOS devices! But why can't Apple present and foster a different model? Simply because a few whiny developers and web pundits don't like it? Oh well, sucks to be them. There are plenty of people like my father for whom the walled garden approach with the consistency and stability it brings are exactly what they are looking for. So why would anyone want to deny my father the right to choose his experience?
Were back to selfishness and intolerance of thought that differs from their own...
As for claiming Apple is paranoid that's a bit over the top too. Apple isn't paranoid, they realize information is power. I have a feeling we are going to find out a court-assigned value to such early information as I'm sure the Gizmodo thing with the iPhone 4 prototype is FAR from over. If pre-release information didn't matter, then there wouldn't be scads of regulations around insider trading and disclosure laws for publicly traded companies. To label simple prudence as paranoia is more than disingenuous.
Although if Apple does go after them for libel, you may get your wish. But even if Apple does, I wouldn't hold my breath - they will more than likely fold like a house of cards and we may never know the details - other than they were reckless idiots.
When was the last time you heard of anyone being sued successfully for libel in the U.S.? The reason you don't hear about these cases, is because it is virtually impossible to win a libel case under U.S. law. Like it or not, it's not illegal to be a reckless idiot.
And a screen shot of a genuine email is still genuine. Was there a point to your remark?
"As someone else pointed out, the only way to resolve this is with encryption (i.e. something like SMIME)"
It's not the only way - BGR can allow an independent forensic lab access to the fles and let them establish their validity. I hope that happens.
"Since Apple has far more to loose than BGR if there is any fakeness going on here, I think I will apply a little Occam's Razor and conclude that BGR is the problem, not Apple."
You're in denial. The emails, if real, would be a PR embarrasment for Apple, while the world and dog's expectation of BGR is that it's a rumor site. A little Occam's Razor indeed.
"Of course if you have a perpetual ax to grind against Apple or you just like to stir up stuff, that's not nearly as fun as accusing Apple of conspiracy - but really, what is more likely?"
BGR has a perpetual ax to grind against Apple? News to me. Probably news to them as well, so perhaps you could post your thoughts about that on their site.
Like I said earlier, it's a sideshow to the main event, but interesting.
I won't respond to the personal insult although it doesn't reflect well on you in resorting to that.
My beef was if Apple was actually denying the emails.
It seemed dubious that a single reporter would get such a denial, that the reporter withheld the "on record" source, and there was no general press release.
The guy gave up his source, so I believe Apple said it. That doesn't mean that Apple is not lying to protect themselves.
I understand what you're saying, and claiming an 'on the record' reply from Apple without ID-ing the source was an odd move from Fortune. That it was confirmed as from Apple's Dowling by another media outlet entirely is also odd. Why wouldn't Fortune do so?
Your point about there being no general release, just the Fortune piece, also seems strange. You want to deny some "fake emails from SJ" but you only want it available to Fortune readers?
Comments
The spokesperson said it "on the record" without being named? That's not on the record - it's off the record.
I call BS.
You guys want to believe it, go ahead. I don't. And if I'm wrong I will post my apologies to all on this forum.
Good to see DED is propagating the spin as usual though.
Oops... Kresh beat me to it.
Anonymous sources can speak on the record. It signifies they can be quoted directly, but not attributed due to fear of retribution. It is a time tested way of getting hard information that will stand up to further fact finding, or the on the record commenter becomes at risk for being openly outed as a liar by the reporter or editors.
The spokesperson and reporter are laying reputation on the line by printing on-the-record explicitly, that is a mark of journalism rather than blogism.
Oh you had me and I was willing to take my lumps till you got to here.
Companies don't flat out lie very frequently? Are you serious? Enron, BP, Microsoft, ever heard of them? How about the recent banking crisis, ninja loans, and the astronomical lies they were telling about the toxic debt they were passing around.
To try and claim the moral high ground for any public traded company in this day and time gives me the giggles. Apple has a lot to lose if it is realized they laid an egg with their flagship product and I don't doubt for even a microsecond that if a lie would get them out of it that they would lie their tails off.
OffTopic: There are a few liars in there, but not too many. Mostly there are a couple individuals doing as much as they can to cover-up problems from the rest of the company, then when the house of cards falls apart, it just falls apart. The "company" Enron didn't lie, a couple VPs and the CFO cooked up a nifty, and at the time legal accounting trick. The CEO and board was greedy so they didn't look any farther, just kept spending lavishly on what looked like a golden goose that would make more money than anyone ever dreamed so the spending wouldn't be noticed. Then it all fell apart.
The company spokesmen didn't lie, the CEO didn't lie about the dealings. The damage was all done legally! It didn't become a legal problem until after the fact when failure to disclose the nastiness's risk was used as the lens of business accountability. Yes the folks involved deserved the legal trouble and convictions they got, but they are the VAST minority in the company and business as a whole. The rest got burned for lack of accountability, not lying.
Why am I splitting hairs? If you want to clean something up you have to understand what the mess is first. Mislabeling the mess will only make any attempts to fix it ineffective and possibly more harmful than good.
Now go back up and read what I said about Enron, here I'll quote it:
The damage was all done legally! It didn't become a legal problem until after the fact when failure to disclose the nastiness's risk was used as the lens of business accountability.
Now think about AIG, who almost single handedly created the credit default swap industry that provided top cover and enabled the mortgage crisis to actually become a crisis. It was the SAME PROBLEM. Legal operations without disclosure of risk!
Why is that a problem? We fried Enron for being corporate liars, not for non-disclosure of risk, which would than have also created regulatory controls on risk we still seem to be avoiding. The Enron regulatory solution was making CEO's sign affidavits saying they weren't lying. How much is that helping now???
Don't look for people to screw after the fact because you think they lied, they almost always didn't. Look for the rules that allowed them to do the damaging things legally in the first place, and fix those.
I look forward to the day when internet journalism matures and becomes a worthy replacement for paper based journalism. It takes time for the cream to rise to the top, and for this new industry to police itself, and for consumers to demand better. If you look at newspapers in the 19th century you'll see much of what you see on websites and blogs today. Rumors published as fact, personal attacks of the most vicious kind, boosterism, payoffs, you name it. In short, Yellow Journalism. Someday there'll be a "website of record," a place where they pride themselves on accuracy, fairness, and neutrality. Where stories are vetted, edited, and rigorously fact checked before posting for all to see.
A guy can dream, can't he?
I'm with you, but I think it's only going to get worse because it's getting worse in traditional media as well. True balance and fairness doesn't sell. Grey areas don't sell. Sophisticated arguments don't sell. Simplified name calling and labeling sells. So when the media decides someone is a good guy or a bad guy, it's very simple for the average person to understand. And what the media really loves is a good guy who they can take down and make a bad guy. This also applies to politics and is something the Republicans understand much better than the Democrats do. The Republicans are actually genius at this, turning "liberal", "socialist" and even "sympathetic" into dirty words. (I forget the campaign, but in the 1950s, a candidate accused his opponent of being a heterosexual. The heterosexual lost. Nixon's campaign staff printed up literature about his opponent, Helen Gahagan-Douglas, on pink paper. (Commies were "pinkos"). That worked too.) That's what headlines are about: telling the whole story in four words. Republicans brilliantly do it in one.
In spite of the fact that more people in the U.S. are attending college than ever before, we seem to be getting incredibly dumber in almost every respect: analysis of arguments, understanding of politics, the value we place on learning and literature, etc. There are other forums I participate in and in some of them, 80% of the contributors sound like they learned English as a second language. Even some of the most supposedly financially successful people in this country (and I won't name names here) don't seem to have basic writing skills.
We are focused totally on meaningless trivia. People obtain college degrees who can't tell you the approximate year the Civil War started or the name of the Vice-President or even who we fought against in World War II, but they're genius at sending out 200 tweets a day or what Lady Gaga is up to or whether the stars of Twilight are romantically involved. And we let these people vote. Want to see something really scary? Go to the site http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?page_id=9798 Then ask yourself whether you think these people show up in voting booths and whether such people are interested in sophisticated argument.
Look at this site. While one can argue that the reporting is relatively balanced, the responses generally aren't. They tend to be isolated into "Jobs is a fool and Apple will fail and you're all idiots for buying Apple" and to "Apple/Jobs is my God."
In today's society, grown men dress like little boys and live with their parents until they're 40 and on forums like this one, people call each other names like they're still 10 and in the playground. We're becoming less mature and our media is a reflection of who we are, so I think internet journalism will continue to become less mature as well. We used to make distinctions as to how we behaved when we stood on a street corner and how we behaved in places such as offices and schools, but now we make no distinctions whatsoever and in forums like this one, people seem to have no problem whatsoever with using "WTF" as the totality of their argument.
And just as many people can't tell the difference between Fox or MSNBC commentators and news, they no longer perceive a difference between bloggers and journalism.
So yes, you can dream. I think we'll see mature journalism on the internet just around the same time that Apple loses its arrogance and paranoia.
I'm with you, but I think it's only going to get worse because it's getting worse in traditional media as well. True balance and fairness doesn't sell. Grey areas don't sell. Sophisticated arguments don't sell. Simplified name calling and labeling sells. So when the media decides someone is a good guy or a bad guy, it's very simple for the average person to understand. And what the media really loves is a good guy who they can take down and make a bad guy.
What distinguishes this set of alleged emails from Jobs from the many others over the last several months is that someone at a major publication (Fortune) was prompted to look into their authenticity.
No one at Fortune bothered to fact check "You're holding it wrong" or any of the others, but somehow these far less interesting emails at BGR warranted more attention.
Does anyone here have an opinion on why Fortune decided to investigate only these lest interesting emails but none of the others? What prompted their call to Apple? Or did the call happen the other way around, as someone in this thread suggested earlier?
I think we'll see mature journalism on the internet just around the same time that Apple loses its arrogance and paranoia.
Agreed.
BGR has the right to print bullshit.
Yes they do. I also reserve the right to discount everything they say.
And sites that wish to present themselves as credible should cite sources like BGR as their source and report it as the unsubstantiated "fact" that click whores like BGR specialize in.
This whole thing was blown *way* out of proportion by a bunch of media whoring self serving jerks. I keep hoping the average person will see this sensationalistic crap for what it is, but the general populace loves a good story - even if it is fake and causes harm in the real world.
Humanity at it's finest
Fox News has set legal precedent for that in US court (!): you can't sue the media for printing things that are inaccurate, even if they are purposely, known lies.
Really? That would be a fascinating court case indeed - can you point me to it?
The voracity of you statement aside, I'm pretty sure if Apple wanted to peruse it they have a very clear cut case of libel. Personally I hope they go after them as the "everything goes and to hell with civility" that is the norm on the Internet is growing very old.
What distinguishes this set of alleged emails from Jobs from the many others over the last several months is that someone at a major publication (Fortune) was prompted to look into their authenticity.
No one at Fortune bothered to fact check "You're holding it wrong" or any of the others, but somehow these far less interesting emails at BGR warranted more attention.
Does anyone here have an opinion on why Fortune decided to investigate only these lest interesting emails but none of the others? What prompted their call to Apple? Or did the call happen the other way around, as someone in this thread suggested earlier?
A better question is -- why didn't BGR verify their authenticity, as Fortune did? The answer is actually an obvious one. It is because BGR is not a source of journalism, and Fortune is. The first rule of journalism is to verify, to find more than one source for information. Do journalists sometimes fail to follow this rule? Sure, but that's usually called a mistake. But the untrained (and unprofessional) publishers of web sites like BGR aren't even aware of the rule, so they never follow it.
Someday there'll be a "website of record," a place where they pride themselves on accuracy, fairness, and neutrality. Where stories are vetted, edited, and rigorously fact checked before posting for all to see.
Unfortunately that costs money. People don't want to pay subscriptions because there is "so much free content - I can get news anywhere!" and they also block ads left and right, so how are you going to fund your vetting, editing and fact checking?
A guy can dream, can't he?
And that's all it will be without a sustainable business model. Up until recently newspapers used to fund all of the above with classified ads - and Craigslist has pretty much killed that business. I'm not assigning blame - just laying out why we are in the sad state of affairs we are in now.
In short, when enough people want what you want, it will happen because there will be enough demand to make it profitable and worth doing. Sadly too few people really wish to be informed about things beyond what they consider their immediate sphere of influence.
Unfortunately the ants are vastly outnumbered by grasshoppers
it's called the ignore list. use it and stop replying or quoting said alleged troll. Cause remember, trolls by their nature want attention. and even say "shut up your troll" is attention.
I don't care if people reply to trolls, just stop quoting their entire posts! If you want to waste your time in a fruitless enterprise, so be it - but don't force the rest of us to continually scroll past their inane blather by quoting it.
And AppleInsider ranks up there too. They dish out quite a bit of BS stories, just spreading rumors from bloggers that claim to be journalists...like always referencing Gizmodo, etc.
But at least I know where I am and what I am getting when I visit AI. And they do cite their sources like Gizmodo so I can (and routinely do) choose to discount it.
What's stupid is that mainstream sites will pick a story up and then use a generic "online news sites report..." or other such nonsense. Those of us who are jaded by the reality of the Internet might discount it as soon as we hear their citation, but even those of us who are jaded may not pay attention because it comes from a source we otherwise trust.
Here's the real message for "legitimate" main stream media - guard the trust we have in you jealously or you will loose what little of it that remains. The hap-hazard way news in general is reported (and no, this isn't solely a purview of Fox, despite the ax many obviously have to grind with them) is the larger story.
To me this is the biggest loss of traditional newspaper journalism. At least with an in depth story in a newspaper they have enough space to report in depth and make a case. You loose that in a less than 3 minute piece over the air or in a snippet on some online site.
And the iP4 crosses the line as it currently stands.
Based on what?
Anandtec concluded the iPhone 4 is better than the HTC for reception, so I'm not sure what line your crossing - unless it's reliance on an on-screen display that every cell phone manufacturer pretty much admits is not really useful for anything but feels compelled to put there since people need to have something to look at.
Did you stop by the BGR site and look at the the screen captures and header shots? Lots of detail so if Apple's spokesperson is fibbing, it'll be tricky to explain.
Sigh. A screen shot of a fake header is still fake.
As someone else pointed out, the only way to resolve this is with encryption (i.e. something like SMIME)
Since Apple has far more to loose than BGR if there is any fakeness going on here, I think I will apply a little Occam's Razor and conclude that BGR is the problem, not Apple.
Of course if you have a perpetual ax to grind against Apple or you just like to stir up stuff, that's not nearly as fun as accusing Apple of conspiracy - but really, what is more likely?
The plot thickens.
Only as a legend in small minds. In lieu of a tin foil hat smiley I
That they may be fakes is entirely possible, while the fact that they're available for scrutiny at least allows some measure of forensic examination.
What the heck is "forensic examination" of files with an unsecured chain of custody?
Forensic examination would be pulling logs from an Apple mail server that show that in a controlled environment there is a system in place to ensure their integrity.
I doubt you could get anything "forensic" out of an operation like BGR.
This isn't CSI, this is the real world and in the real world there are concepts of logic and fact, not fantasy and wishing.
We wait with bated breath at the outcome.
Speaking of fantasy and wishing...
Although if Apple does go after them for libel, you may get your wish. But even if Apple does, I wouldn't hold my breath - they will more than likely fold like a house of cards and we may never know the details - other than they were reckless idiots.
As a sideshow to the main event though, it has it's own measure of mystery and deception, n'est pas?
No, it just further demonstrates deception, greed and stupidity. Rather tawdry and boring, actually.
That they may be fakes is entirely possible, while the fact that they're available for scrutiny at least allows some measure of forensic examination.
That incorrectly presumes anyone here is interested in finding out the truth. Why bother examining the facts when you can just have a good ol' fashioned lynching instead?
This also applies to politics and is something the Republicans understand much better than the Democrats do. The Republicans are actually genius at this, turning "liberal", "socialist" and even "sympathetic" into dirty words.
So Democrats never toss around "conservative", "fascist" and other concepts? And your railing against intellectual laziness?
Talk about ironic!
In spite of the fact that more people in the U.S. are attending college than ever before, we seem to be getting incredibly dumber in almost every respect: analysis of arguments, understanding of politics, the value we place on learning and literature, etc.
The problem is critical thinking is a tool. It's not something that can be taught like facts or math skills. And to truly hone it you have to use it often, read voraciously and expose yourself to ideas that you may not agree with. Heck, you might even have to accept that every once and a while your sacred cow may not even be that sacred! All it takes is looking at Internet communities to discover just how popular that is with people.
Internet echo chamber indeed.
There are other forums I participate in and in some of them, 80% of the contributors sound like they learned English as a second language.
That's because it's socially acceptable to write like an idiot. If someone points out bad spelling or language use they are a "grammar nazi" or worse, a square (or <insert other pejorative here>)
Even some of the most supposedly financially successful people in this country (and I won't name names here) don't seem to have basic writing skills.
In some ways computers have been wonderful tools. But in others they have really done damage to basic intellectualism. In reading, I do notice my vocabulary and spelling has decreased significantly because I no longer read. I browse on the Internet, reading snippets (of often malformed english) here and there. When I actually read books it was much different. I was in a different frame of mind - more focused and in tune to what I was doing. I've been saying I am going to read less on the computer and go back to reading at least a little the "old fashioned way" - thanks for giving me the impetuous to do so!
And it's not just reading. Words are cheap. When you can type out at a keyboard and make wholesale edits with the whack of a mouse or stroke of a few keys, you don't have to pay attention much to what you are doing. Gone are the days of typewriters and carbon where every action was a deliberate one or you had to re-do lots of work! The discipline of writing has shifted, that's for sure. I'm not saying I want to go back to the typewriter, but there needs to be some way to capture a little of the deliberation of old.
Talk about another ironic moment, forum writing like this is probably the worst for enforcing the "off the cuff" and "little forethought" habits as well. Ack!
We are focused totally on meaningless trivia. People obtain college degrees who can't tell you the approximate year the Civil War started or the name of the Vice-President or even who we fought against in World War II, but they're genius at sending out 200 tweets a day or what Lady Gaga is up to or whether the stars of Twilight are romantically involved. And we let these people vote.
Sadly this is nothing new, nor will it ever likely change. The methods and means for triviality may change but it will always be there.
Personally I see the future as predicted in several Sci-Fi stories where everyone jacks into a virtual universe and then goes extinct from inaction.
We're becoming less mature and our media is a reflection of who we are, so I think internet journalism will continue to become less mature as well.
It ebbs and flows. It's definitely ebbing now...
We used to make distinctions as to how we behaved when we stood on a street corner and how we behaved in places such as offices and schools, but now we make no distinctions whatsoever and in forums like this one, people seem to have no problem whatsoever with using "WTF" as the totality of their argument.
lol - I used to have a link to an essay from the 1800's complaining that society was becoming more "casual". While I don't really wish to go back to formal cards for introductions, courting and other concepts are are pretty arcane and foreign, I do agree that there is a more constructive middle ground that as a society we are leaning a little to far towards the opposite spectrum.
And just as many people can't tell the difference between Fox or MSNBC commentators and news, they no longer perceive a difference between bloggers and journalism.
I don't know about that. On MSNBC and Fox it's pretty easy to pick out the editorial content from the hard journalism since the legitimate commentators tend to emphasize their commentary.
What I have a problem with are journalistic outlets that are traditionally "hard only" editorializing. Much of the grinding against Fox and MSNBC is from people who are simply intolorant towards the expression of views that are contrary to their own. It's less an issue of the news and entertainment organizations and more an expression of their own immaturaty and selfeshness.
No one has the right to not be offended or challenged in their thinking
So yes, you can dream. I think we'll see mature journalism on the internet just around the same time that Apple loses its arrogance and paranoia.
Mature Journalism is an oxymoron.
Apple is not arrogant or paranoid. What many people express as arrogance is Apple confidently stating: "This is our product, it's the best we feel it can be. If you agree, please buy it. If not, feel free to go to our competitors".
That's a far cry from "Apple is arrogant because they refuse to produce a trash under $500 PC - all these other manufactures can do it so Apple is just being arrogant and elitist!" Apple is about experience, first and foremost - and the experience of a cheap PC - if you are honest - is a pretty crappy one. So they choose to not be in that space. If you are willing to put up with the experience of a cheap PC, more power to you. It just won't be with Apple. That's not arrogant, it's discriminatory. They know they can't be all things to all people, so they choose to focus on that which they can excel at. It must be pretty smart, since with a fraction of the market they have vaulted past the likes of Microsoft and just about everyone else.
Same thing with features on phones, the app store vetting process and all the other things that people love to pillory them for. The "walled garden" stuff with Apple is the most amusing. If you don't like it, don't buy any iOS devices! But why can't Apple present and foster a different model? Simply because a few whiny developers and web pundits don't like it? Oh well, sucks to be them. There are plenty of people like my father for whom the walled garden approach with the consistency and stability it brings are exactly what they are looking for. So why would anyone want to deny my father the right to choose his experience?
Were back to selfishness and intolerance of thought that differs from their own...
As for claiming Apple is paranoid that's a bit over the top too. Apple isn't paranoid, they realize information is power. I have a feeling we are going to find out a court-assigned value to such early information as I'm sure the Gizmodo thing with the iPhone 4 prototype is FAR from over. If pre-release information didn't matter, then there wouldn't be scads of regulations around insider trading and disclosure laws for publicly traded companies. To label simple prudence as paranoia is more than disingenuous.
I think we'll see mature journalism on the internet just around the same time that Apple loses its arrogance and paranoia.
[QUOTE=RationalTroll;1667442
Agreed.[/QUOTE]
Question: Is it paranoia when lawyers and rival corporations really ARE out to get you?
Also, Apple has earned its right to a little arrogance after being pissed on for so many years by Microsoft and Windows fanboys.
Although if Apple does go after them for libel, you may get your wish. But even if Apple does, I wouldn't hold my breath - they will more than likely fold like a house of cards and we may never know the details - other than they were reckless idiots.
When was the last time you heard of anyone being sued successfully for libel in the U.S.? The reason you don't hear about these cases, is because it is virtually impossible to win a libel case under U.S. law. Like it or not, it's not illegal to be a reckless idiot.
And a screen shot of a genuine email is still genuine. Was there a point to your remark?
"As someone else pointed out, the only way to resolve this is with encryption (i.e. something like SMIME)"
It's not the only way - BGR can allow an independent forensic lab access to the fles and let them establish their validity. I hope that happens.
"Since Apple has far more to loose than BGR if there is any fakeness going on here, I think I will apply a little Occam's Razor and conclude that BGR is the problem, not Apple."
You're in denial. The emails, if real, would be a PR embarrasment for Apple, while the world and dog's expectation of BGR is that it's a rumor site. A little Occam's Razor indeed.
"Of course if you have a perpetual ax to grind against Apple or you just like to stir up stuff, that's not nearly as fun as accusing Apple of conspiracy - but really, what is more likely?"
BGR has a perpetual ax to grind against Apple? News to me. Probably news to them as well, so perhaps you could post your thoughts about that on their site.
Like I said earlier, it's a sideshow to the main event, but interesting.
I won't respond to the personal insult although it doesn't reflect well on you in resorting to that.
Based on what?
Already explained. Look at that post.
My beef was if Apple was actually denying the emails.
It seemed dubious that a single reporter would get such a denial, that the reporter withheld the "on record" source, and there was no general press release.
The guy gave up his source, so I believe Apple said it. That doesn't mean that Apple is not lying to protect themselves.
I understand what you're saying, and claiming an 'on the record' reply from Apple without ID-ing the source was an odd move from Fortune. That it was confirmed as from Apple's Dowling by another media outlet entirely is also odd. Why wouldn't Fortune do so?
Your point about there being no general release, just the Fortune piece, also seems strange. You want to deny some "fake emails from SJ" but you only want it available to Fortune readers?
More to come I suspect.