A lesson in access journalism in the wake of the New York Times' Foxconn series
"An Apple spokesman said no executives were available to comment."
That sentence, appearing 12 paragraphs into a 14-graph story by Brian X. Chen in Thursday's New York Times, speaks volumes about how Apple (AAPL) deals with press coverage it doesn't like.
For more than a week, the company had been seeding selected media outlets with early access to its next Mac operating system, dubbed Mountain Lion. (See Apple public relations' new media pecking order.)
In a long piece posted Thursday morning, Daring Fireball's John Gruber -- a Philadelphia-based blogger know to write positively about Apple -- described how he was summoned to a fancy hotel room in New York, given a polished one-on-one keynote presentation by Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president for worldwide marketing, and sent home with a loaner MacBook Air pre-loaded with the new OS. "We're starting to do things differently," Schiller told Gruber.
The Wall Street Journal's Jessica Vascellaro got one better: a briefing by Schiller and an exclusive interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook.
The Times, however, got skunked. No Cook interview. No quotes that weren't in the press release. No call-back for Chen. (However David Pogue, an independent contractor who does product reviews for the Times, did get the full Schiller treatment.)
The reason for all this disrepect, the Washington Post's Erik Wemple speculates, was the hard-hitting series the Times' ran last month on working conditions in Foxconn's Chinese factories (See Apple in China: The New York Times goes for the Pulitzer).
Foxconn assembles roughly 40% of the world's electronic devices, including Dells, HPs and Sonys. But the Times' series singled out Apple in way that many, including CEO Cook (see here), thought misleading and unfair.
Was the cold shoulder the Gray Lady got this week really payback for the series? Reporters and editors at the Times seem to think so. Wemple got two quotes, one off the record, one on:
"They are playing access journalism ... I've heard it from people inside Apple: They said, look, you guys are going to get less access based on the iEconomy series."
"We're never happy with our access to Apple. We never have been. Apple is a difficult company to report on," says Damon Darlin, the paper's tech editor. When asked how big a deal is the Journal's exclusive with Cook, Darlin responds: "Talking to the CEO of one of the largest technology companies, the highest-valued company of the world? Yes, we would like to do that. They know that."
Apple's strategy seems to be working. Mountain Lion got an extraordinary level of press coverage. Shortly after noon on Thursday we counted 135 published stories, all of them -- as near as we could tell -- positive.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story suggested, incorrectly, that Times' David Pogue had not been given the same access and courtesy as the other reviewers.
Averaging the Q1 2012 estimates of the six analysts with the best track records
Whisper numbers, according to Wikipedia, emerge from widening cracks in the spreadsheets maintained by Wall Street analysts. Quoting an article by Daniel Svensson, the entry explains:
"When the estimate is first calculated by sell-side analysts, the number is submitted to companies such as First Call to be averaged with other analysts' estimates for the consensus earnings estimate. As MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 23, 2012 6:19 AM ET
Fortune contributor Brent Schlender shares some of the stories and personal photographs he collected during more than two decades as Steve Jobs' chronicler and confidant.
Jobs' scribe: Schlender (left) interviewing Jobs at a Next company picnic
FORTUNE -- Most of us who wrote in depth about the brilliant career of Steve Jobs sooner or later came to realize that we were complicit in the making of a modern myth. You simply MORE
Oct 25, 2011 5:00 AM ET
With OS X Lion, a new MacBook Air and a new MacBook mini
Source: Apple.com
In Wednesday's apple.com splash screen, Apple (AAPL) is highlighting "the new, faster MacBook Air."
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jul 20, 2011 8:50 AM ET
Estimates range from 3.8 to 4.6 million. The consensus: 4.2 million, an all-time high
Source: Company reports, Apple 2.0
The Mac was hot seller last Christmas. But it was even hotter in the June quarter, according to most of the 43 analysts we polled in advance of our quarterly earnings smackdown.
Thirty of them are calling for Apple (AAPL) to set an all-time record for computers sold when it releases its earnings MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jul 14, 2011 12:44 PM ET
The largest collection of amateur analysts sees iPhone sales up 110%, iPads up 155%
Data: Posts At Eventide. Chart: PED
Apple (AAPL) will report its earnings for the June quarter on July 19, two weeks from today. The current consensus among Wall Street analysts, according to Thomson Financial, is that the company earned $5.69 per share on sales of $24.67 billion, up 62.1% and 57.2%, respectively.
Impressive as those growth rates might MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jul 5, 2011 3:20 PM ET
Free for those who couldn't make it to San Francisco or didn't sign up before they sold out
Source: Apple Inc.
The 5,200 developers who rushed to register before the $1,599 tickets sold out, flew to San Francisco to be there in person, and stood in lines that snaked around three city blocks say that the conversations that took place in the hallways between sessions were half the reason to attend MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 24, 2011 11:44 AM ET
Reports of overheating under heavy loads are piling up in Apple's discussion forums
Image: Apple Inc.
"The fans revved and suddenly I could use nothing but the cursor. Had to hold down the power switch to kill all and then re-power & startup. I wasn't doing anything unusual, but I had 7 apps open and was amid an auto-backup to TimeMachine."
So begins the first message in MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 21, 2011 8:18 AM ET
Fortune's final poll of Apple analysts -- professional and amateur
Click to enlarge.
We'll find out whose estimates were closest to the mark when Apple (AAPL) releases its earnings for the first fiscal quarter of 2011 shortly after the markets close. A conference call with analysts is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. EST (2 p.m. PST). The hour-long session will be webcast here.
We'll compare the estimates to the actual MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 18, 2011 6:53 AM ET
Google is phasing out its use of Microsoft's Windows on desktops, citing security concerns stemming from the recent Chinese hacking incident
It must be nice to be a Google employee. You get to work with the smartest engineers out there. You get gourmet cafeteria food and all kinds of amenities. But best of all, you aren't given some generic, locked-down PC that you aren't familiar with. You get to pick what platform you MORE
Seth Weintraub - May 31, 2010 10:30 PM ETEvery morning, discover the companies, deals and trends in tech that are moving markets and making headlines. SUBSCRIBE
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| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.95 | -0.16 | -1.97% |
| Microsoft Corp | 31.27 | -0.17 | -0.54% |
| Ford Motor Co | 12.28 | -0.25 | -2.00% |
| General Electric Co | 19.39 | 0.17 | 0.88% |
| Citigroup Inc | 32.36 | -1.00 | -3.00% |
| Index | Last | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dow | 12,938.67 | -27.02 | -0.21% |
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| S&P 500 | 1,357.66 | -4.55 | -0.33% |
| Treasuries | 2.00 | -0.04 | -1.96% |
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