IP: more on Microsoft and so called independent analysts

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 15:09 +0100 (BST)
> From: wendyg () cix compulink co uk (Wendy Grossman)
> Subject: Re: IP: Microsoft and so called independent analysts
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> Reply-To: wendyg () cix compulink co uk
>
> In-Reply-To: <v0422080bb431c748d08d@[212.209.111.104]>
>  > >There really should be a requirement that any press or analyst
>  > >should have to disclose help or payment from a vendor in the
>  > >preparation of an article or financial support for their
>  > >organization.
>
> Even in the UK, where there's a much more liberal attitude towards
> accepting "freebies" (that is, permanent loans of equipment, press
> trips, etc.), I know of no one who's accepted direct payment for
> specific articles.  What is much more damaging long-term is first of all
> the practice of requiring journalists to sign NDAs as a condition of
> attending certain briefings or being supplied with advance technical
> information.  Journalists here of my acquaintance defend this practice
> on the grounds that the company has a right to protect products in
> development, and that they themselves will be crippled in trying to
> write about the new technologies without the information.  Perhaps.  My
> own view, however, is that slowly but surely the NDAs lure journalists
> into a cozy relationship with the mfrs; being asked to sign an NDA is,
> for some (though not all) I'm sure flattering in terms of the
> journalist's sense of the importance of the material s/he's being
> allowed to have.
>
> In the UK (though not, I believe, in the US), a number of journalists
> also supplement their income by writing corporate and/or PR work.  They
> seem confident this doesn't affect their ability to be objective.
>
> To be fair, though, it would be difficult or impossible to write
> persistently about technology without *some* kind of help -- it's in the
> nature of things that when you are overworked, on deadline, and need
> help understanding some technical point, the fastest and most logical
> place to seek an explanation is the product's mfr and/or its PR people.
>
> What seems to me more common is that the large influx of newcomers into
> technology reporting as tech has moved into the mainstream gives PR
> people scope to push their view of the world to people who do not have
> the knowledge or experience to put their claims into perspective.  A
> case in point happened here in the UK a couple of years ago, when
> mainstream interviewer Brian Appleyard wrote up a visitation with Bill
> Gates.  He bought wholesale the Microosft PRs' (and to be fair, lots of
> the PR people employed by major companies are new, young, and ignorant,
> too, and buy what they're told -- the turnover is astonishing) claim
> that MS invented BASIC.  His piece appeared in the Independent.  How
> many journalists read that and believed it, and will now repeat it as
> fact?
>
> And how about the day that the London Times allowed Microsoft to buy the
> entire edition and distribute it free to celebrate the launch of Windows
> 95?
>
> wg