'Biased' Apple Media has Dvorak Worried


Forget about crying for Argentina. John Dvorak, in his latest PC Mag column, is crying for...Microsoft?

And it's all our fault.

Well, not our fault specifically, but the 'biased' corporate media in general. It seems John believes that the media is, well, a little too Apple-friendly.

By contrast, Dvorak opines, "the coverage of the company [Microsoft] is quite mediocre." And John knows why: "The reason for this is that today's newspaper and magazine tech writers know little about computers and are all Mac users. It's a fact."

Hm. We wouldn't exactly argue people like David Pogue knows "little about computers." But - guilty as charged - he does use a Mac.

(Actually, Steve Jobs knows little about computers and uses a Mac, so...).

Attracting Dvorak's bile includes the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Fortune. However, his problem seems to be that writers for mainstream publications use Macs. We think even Orlowski at The Register 'switched', but he took a lot of convincing.

It gets worse. Witness this:

"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."

'Microsoft-centric'? How about objectivity? Isn't that what mainstream tech journalists are supposed to be about?

Of course, the Mac (and the Windows and Linux, for that matter) media don't count within this 'objectivity' framework. Clearly, if you come to a site named 'Insanely Great Mac', you're not here to find out how to fix your Windows Registry.

However, if you pick up PC Mag, despite its title, you do expect an objective review of a PowerBook or whatever. We don't expect Macworld to start pushing PCs, but we do expect them to give sensible buying advice about a new Mac model (or any third-party product, for that matter). On occasion, they haven't been afraid of wielding the big stick: their criticism of the PowerBook 5300 in 1995 was right on the money.

We think Dvorak's gripe is really about the power and reach of the publications he names. Or the fact that they've asked him not to call them anymore. When one considers that, statistically, the vast majority of tech writers must use PCs, his argument that 'new generations' of writers will have no PC experience beggars belief.

Apart from which, the products MS puts out have an army of PR people and millions of dollars of marketing behind them. It's not as if any product MS puts out is ignored. But Dvorak thinks they are: "Microsoft can roll out a dozen cool products, and the media goes ga-ga over the video iPod."

But Apple products do attract more attention, simply because they are often ground-breaking or innovative in other ways. Are the public really so deluded that they buy millions of iPods, despite the fact there are 'better' alternatives out there? (you might say the same about PCs, but there's really only one reason people buy them: cheap).

Apart from which, there's really nothing that exciting about MS releasing an 'upgrade' to Office which requires 100MB more RAM, 2GB more disc space, and 1GHz more processing power, for people who spend their time writing form letters.

MS releasing a dozen cool products? Mein Gott. You could at least name six of them, John.