Media bias


macrumors 65816
Jan 31, 2002
Re: Media bias

Originally posted by DHagan4755
Do you think there's a strong anti-Apple flavour to the reporting of news in the tech industry?
It is said that people tend to fear what they don´t know...! ;) :D :rolleyes: :(


Moderator emeritus
Jun 25, 2002
Gone but not forgotten.
Journalists tend to stay away from Apple equipment for whatever reason, perhaps fear of the unknown, as Stike says.

They suffered with text terminals, then DOS-based word processors, and now, Windows-based word processors. A rare few have ever used a Macintosh.

Still, you see a few Macintosh enthusiasts among them and you see their columns in the NYTimes, Business Week, and The Wall Street Journal.

In this week's Sunday magazine that came with the Orlando Sentinel, they had a high-tech gift-giving guide. Unlike practically every other guide, this one had no Apple items, but did have the Odyssey iPod look-alike instead. In fact, several of the things had Apple-emulated designs.

Like the style, hate the company?


macrumors 6502
Oct 13, 2002
seattle, wa
Re: Media bias

Originally posted by DHagan4755
not on TechTv if you watch FreshGear, or The Screensavers.
Leo Laporte <sp.??> on TSS uses the 12.1 ibook, sumi das on fresh gear, is always recommending the ibook in laptop reviews, and they gave a very good review of the ipod too. so yeah there is bias but you just gotta look around that :)

Mr. Anderson

Moderator emeritus
Nov 1, 2001
Re: Media bias

Originally posted by DHagan4755
No really, its mostly personal preference - one day you get a great article on cnn the next msn is bashing OSX (not surprising there though). For the Mac it general though, it sometimes is partly an emotional decision when dealing with the style issue of the machine, or having something different from the rest of the PC world. And just like here at this site where you find plenty of Mac-o-philes there are other sites with pc-o-philes.

Its an on going argument that really won't ever have a conclusion. So any article or review that you see is basically a preference of the authors and not necessarily biased - although you do get fair assessments from time to time.

Is this ambiguous enogh? ;)



macrumors 65816
Apr 14, 2002
Sydney, Australia
there's a dude called David Coursey on ZDnet who used PC's until some time this year I think where he tried out a mac for some column...he had it for weeks and initially, his only complaint seemed that there was a lack of compatibility with his PC regarding networking and all but that changed with the release of Jaguar...he has been supporting macs ever since...most recently, he published a holiday gifts guide and guess what? the iMac (17")m 10GB iPod, iBook, TiBook and 17" monitor all made it to their respective categories, with a couple of them gaining editor's choice and thats one mac-supporting new seems that he just had to try a mac and then he loved them..I'm sure most people would as well...


macrumors regular
Jul 12, 2002
Oxford, UK
Depends where you look really...

Some magazines, not necessarily computer ones, and in particular the main-stream press will skirt over Apple products because there are seen very much as an unknown...its easier to describe how Word works on one PC compared to another PC rather than a Mac, because they are mainly dealing with luddites to whom the use of computers is still some kind of alchemy...adding a whole other system and having to explain the differences in that as well would just complicate things far too much.

Recently it seems there has been a raising of Apple's profile across the board to me in more "lifestyle" orientated magazines...Stuff magazine here in the UK is a good example, dealing with gadgets and boys toys etc it recently put 3 Apple products (iBook, iPod and iMac) in its top 10 best gadgets for Xmas list (iMac winning!)...and "novice" magazines such as Computer Active seem much more willing to offer Apple machines as alternatives (I remember one article about Video editing where they went through the basic systems available for PC users, then had a big box saying "alternatively, buy an iMac and it will do it all out of the box blah blah blah"...and thats quite encouraging to me!


macrumors 65816
Oct 9, 2002
Sydney, Australia
in australia there is no press for or against apple. you say mac here and they have a few responses:

* what is that?
* is mac still making money? (confuse company name)
* oh, ok - does it run word?
* isnt it unstable
* isnt it bankrupt
* they arent compatible with windows
* noone uses them anymore
* macs suck (they'd never used one though ...)
* yeah but schools arent any good (imac 266 - OS8.6 - no protection - students fiddle alot)
* mmmmmm <ref. statement 1>

stop whining, you get press coverage


Jul 9, 2000
i think sometimes steve jobs comes across as an idiot when he is interviewed...kind of like our president ;)

and the wall street journal likes to write spook stories about apple's financial future and the future of many high tech companies in general

but then again, high tech did not give the world a lot to be happy about when things crashed and many people lost their fortunes in the market

but the people i know took a bath with microsoft, yahoo, and cisco...more than with apple (those investors did not really believe enough in apple inc in the first place to put that much money on the line for them)

the introduction of the imac back in 1998 was a huge boost but i have not seen any huge stock confidence in apple after a product release since

the ibook in its introduction was great

then months later, burst and everything in high tech went to pot in a way that even the worst naysayers could not predict

it's sad, even now, but at least apple still puts out good product