By reading the accounts of Macworld CreativePro this week, one could well wonder whether any two of the outlets covering the event were actually at the same show.
The biggest dichotomy probably existed between those covering the show from the Javits Center and those covering the New York-based event from, say Wisconsin. Even before the exhibit hall had opened, some online outlets had already decried the event with words like “snorefest” or other similar soubriquets. One referred to the “dismal results of IDG’s MacWorld Creative Pro” and made sweeping, unsubstantiated pronouncements that “tens of thousands of people…were terribly disappointed.”
Ah, but this is the Mac web, where trivialities like facts should never be allowed to get in the way of a perfectly good tirade or personal vendetta. (And you are thus encouraged to take this very treatise with a large helping of salt as well.)
What’s far more disturbing though, (and please note that this is an opinion piece where I get to say things like that) is the almost laughable disregard for research or fact-checking shown by major media outlets. The Boston Globe, for example — arguably one of the largest news outlets in one of the nation’s largest cities — sent a summer intern to cover the event.
James Colins (or “Jamie,” as his photographer called him) is a journalism student earning college credits for his stint with the Globe this summer. And while Colins seems like a perfectly likeable guy (I met him briefly in the show’s media room this week), his evident unfamiliarity with the subject at hand led him to a completely faulty conclusion — that became the lead for his article.
Noting the smaller attendance at this summer’s event, Colins writes that thousands stayed away from the exhibit hall, “apparently discouraged by the absence of Apple Computer founder and chief executive Steve Jobs.”
What Colin almost completely ignores is the fact that this year’s Macworld is an almost completely different show, targeted to a much smaller audience of people who use their Macs professionally — a fact he briefly alludes to, but not until the seventh paragraph of the piece. Now, the merits of these decisions and their impact on the success or failure of this or future events are all fair game for debate and exploration, but any valid analysis has to start with the acknowledgment that this is not the Macworld of years past; the “big drop” in attendance Colins cites was expected; the fact that exhibitors would be fewer was well known in advance. But by failing to do his homework, Colins can do little more than view this show in dubious comparisons with its consumer-focused counterpart.
The other big problem with Colins’ “discouraged” remark is something he should have learned in Journalism 101: attribution. To whom was it apparent that would-be visitors were discouraged? If they didn’t show up at the conference, how could he possibly know why? Did he ask people at the show why their friends didn’t make the trek? Did he dig up old IDG registration lists and ask past attendees if they were returning? There’s no evidence he did, but since he doesn’t say, the reader can’t know for sure, and we’re left wondering if Colins has simply inserted his own hypothesis into a supposedly objective piece of journalism.
Colins has additional problems with basic journalistic tenets. For instance, he introduces a quote that makes a simple observation (“‘It definitely feels smaller than last year,’ said graphic artist Julia Volpe, 39″) with an unsupported conclusion. “only 40,000…were expected to show up….Some who did attend were disappointed.”
“Disappointed?” Maybe so, but we are given no reason to believe Volpe is one of them. She is quoted saying the show “feels smaller.” If this disappointed her, the reader can’t tell from the quote. If she told Colins she was disappointed by the size of the show, why didn’t he use that quote?
Colins notes that Microsoft did not have a booth at the event. True enough. Adobe, on the other hand, did have a booth, according to Colins. Actually, Adobe rented three meeting rooms, according to information on the event’s website, but no booth. The rooms, however, are referred to generically as booths in the site’s listing, indicating that Colins may have simply taken the list at face value and not bothered to visit the “booth” itself. (I walked the exhibit hall several times and saw no such Adobe booth; although the company held several seminars and workshops out of its rooms.)
There are quotes from just two exhibitors in the Globe article: one from a Xerox staffer who observes that the other side of the exhibit hall was full at last year’s show, but goes on to blame a sluggish tech industry and increased marketing over the Internet — not the absence of Steve Jobs. The other –”This is a shadow of former Macworlds”– is attributed to Steven Chazin, the product marketing manager for Avid Technology.
Avid representatives made no secret they were upset with Apple when it announced Final Cut Express, a direct competitor to Avid’s own mid-range video editing package. So did Chazin have a corporate axe to grind with Apple when he made his comment? Maybe; maybe not. But certainly the acrimonious relationship the two companies have had in the recent past could be seen as clouding any opinions Avid might offer and was, therefore, worthy of mention.
The tagline of RandomMaccess is “Mac journalism is not an oxymoron.” That seems to be a harder case to make lately, both within and without the realm of the “Mac press.” But the bigger question is this: if the press is this sloppy in reporting on the Mac, what else are they getting wrong?
Editorial: Is ‘Mac Journalism’ an oxymoron after all?
By reading the accounts of Macworld CreativePro this week, one could well wonder whether any two of the outlets covering the event were actually at the same show.
The biggest dichotomy probably existed between those covering the show from the Javits Center and those covering the New York-based event from, say Wisconsin. Even before the exhibit hall had opened, some online outlets had already decried the event with words like “snorefest” or other similar soubriquets. One referred to the “dismal results of IDG’s MacWorld Creative Pro” and made sweeping, unsubstantiated pronouncements that “tens of thousands of people…were terribly disappointed.”
Ah, but this is the Mac web, where trivialities like facts should never be allowed to get in the way of a perfectly good tirade or personal vendetta. (And you are thus encouraged to take this very treatise with a large helping of salt as well.)
What’s far more disturbing though, (and please note that this is an opinion piece where I get to say things like that) is the almost laughable disregard for research or fact-checking shown by major media outlets. The Boston Globe, for example — arguably one of the largest news outlets in one of the nation’s largest cities — sent a summer intern to cover the event.
James Colins (or “Jamie,” as his photographer called him) is a journalism student earning college credits for his stint with the Globe this summer. And while Colins seems like a perfectly likeable guy (I met him briefly in the show’s media room this week), his evident unfamiliarity with the subject at hand led him to a completely faulty conclusion — that became the lead for his article.
Noting the smaller attendance at this summer’s event, Colins writes that thousands stayed away from the exhibit hall, “apparently discouraged by the absence of Apple Computer founder and chief executive Steve Jobs.”
What Colin almost completely ignores is the fact that this year’s Macworld is an almost completely different show, targeted to a much smaller audience of people who use their Macs professionally — a fact he briefly alludes to, but not until the seventh paragraph of the piece. Now, the merits of these decisions and their impact on the success or failure of this or future events are all fair game for debate and exploration, but any valid analysis has to start with the acknowledgment that this is not the Macworld of years past; the “big drop” in attendance Colins cites was expected; the fact that exhibitors would be fewer was well known in advance. But by failing to do his homework, Colins can do little more than view this show in dubious comparisons with its consumer-focused counterpart.
The other big problem with Colins’ “discouraged” remark is something he should have learned in Journalism 101: attribution. To whom was it apparent that would-be visitors were discouraged? If they didn’t show up at the conference, how could he possibly know why? Did he ask people at the show why their friends didn’t make the trek? Did he dig up old IDG registration lists and ask past attendees if they were returning? There’s no evidence he did, but since he doesn’t say, the reader can’t know for sure, and we’re left wondering if Colins has simply inserted his own hypothesis into a supposedly objective piece of journalism.
Colins has additional problems with basic journalistic tenets. For instance, he introduces a quote that makes a simple observation (“‘It definitely feels smaller than last year,’ said graphic artist Julia Volpe, 39″) with an unsupported conclusion. “only 40,000…were expected to show up….Some who did attend were disappointed.”
“Disappointed?” Maybe so, but we are given no reason to believe Volpe is one of them. She is quoted saying the show “feels smaller.” If this disappointed her, the reader can’t tell from the quote. If she told Colins she was disappointed by the size of the show, why didn’t he use that quote?
Colins notes that Microsoft did not have a booth at the event. True enough. Adobe, on the other hand, did have a booth, according to Colins. Actually, Adobe rented three meeting rooms, according to information on the event’s website, but no booth. The rooms, however, are referred to generically as booths in the site’s listing, indicating that Colins may have simply taken the list at face value and not bothered to visit the “booth” itself. (I walked the exhibit hall several times and saw no such Adobe booth; although the company held several seminars and workshops out of its rooms.)
There are quotes from just two exhibitors in the Globe article: one from a Xerox staffer who observes that the other side of the exhibit hall was full at last year’s show, but goes on to blame a sluggish tech industry and increased marketing over the Internet — not the absence of Steve Jobs. The other –”This is a shadow of former Macworlds”– is attributed to Steven Chazin, the product marketing manager for Avid Technology.
Avid representatives made no secret they were upset with Apple when it announced Final Cut Express, a direct competitor to Avid’s own mid-range video editing package. So did Chazin have a corporate axe to grind with Apple when he made his comment? Maybe; maybe not. But certainly the acrimonious relationship the two companies have had in the recent past could be seen as clouding any opinions Avid might offer and was, therefore, worthy of mention.
The tagline of RandomMaccess is “Mac journalism is not an oxymoron.” That seems to be a harder case to make lately, both within and without the realm of the “Mac press.” But the bigger question is this: if the press is this sloppy in reporting on the Mac, what else are they getting wrong?