IP: more on Microsoft and "independent" analysts

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

> X-Sender: >X-Sender: brett@localhost
> Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 17:17:34 -0600
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat org>
> Subject: IP: Microsoft and "independent" analysts
>
> I read, with interest, Wendy Grossman's remarks regarding Microsoft's
> relationship with the press and analysts. Besides doing programming,
> hardware design, and technical consulting, I'm also a long-time computer
> columnist with more than 15 years in the mainstream trade press and more
> than 1000 published articles. So, I've had much time to observe the
> phenomena Wendy describes.
>
> Wendy writes:
>
>  >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.
>
> Computer journalists who write feature articles or columns, as I do,
> are rarely affected by either of the issues raised above. However,
> reporters -- whose careers and reputations depend upon delivering
> breaking stories quickly -- are more likely to be concerned about
> getting the news first. And companies such as Microsoft can and do
> favor the reporters who repeat the language of their press releases,
> and echo their PR spin, the most faithfully.
>
> Advertising, too, exerts a strong influence -- despite the supposed
> existence of a "Chinese wall" between advertising and editorial.
> Microsoft is the #1 advertiser in many trade publications, and this
> naturally gives it the power to influence -- via telephone calls
> from high ranking executives -- editorial practices. Shortly after
> the start of the Microsoft trial, several journalists
> who were unsympathetic to Microsoft's cause were dismissed from
> publications where Microsoft was the principal advertiser.
>
> "Independent" research firms, whose reports may cost as much as $10K
> per copy, also find themselves influenced by big players.
> By buying reports and "sponsoring" studies from other firms rather
> than from them, and/or referring the trade press to analysts at
> other firms for quotes, a player such as Microsoft (whose
> financial and PR resources are virtually infinite) can quickly
> persuade these companies to toe the line.
>
>  >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.
>
> Unfortunately, too many reporters on tight deadlines ignore a cardinal
> rule that's generally applied both by experienced journalists and by
> judges: "Consider the source." A good writer does more than echo words;
> he or she should also help the reader (who can't perceive cues such as
> facial expressions and may not have the background information
> required to detect inconsistencies) to assess credibility.
>
> Too many writers also write about topics of which they have inadequate
> understanding. This is especially true in the area of computer
> technology, where journalists routinely fail to detect blatant
> falsehoods. Trade publications are further fraught with errors due to the
> prevalence of technically unknowledgeable copy editors -- who do not
> understand, for example, when a specific word order or the passive
> voice is necessary to express a technical concept correctly. When I deal
> with a publication, I always request proofs of the edited text. Despite
> my urgent notes containing corrections, errors I catch often appear in
> print even after I've pointed them out.
>
>  >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?
>
> Some companies -- Microsoft most especially -- rely on this phenomenon
> in ways which many consider to be at best disingenuous and at worst
> unscrupulous. While Microsoft is far from the only company which
> attempts to mislead in this way, it is -- in the experience of many
> seasoned writers in the computer press -- the one which does so the
> most frequently.
>
> --Brett Glass



> My feeling is, in a competitive environment, there will always be someone
> who's the biggest and therefore a threat. So long as the sum of all the
> other players is greater than that one, it will make sense for that
> (dominant player) to toe the line and be standards-compatible.
>
> --Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web