MG Siegler and Kara Swisher: Skirmish!
TechCrunch’s MG Siegler today posted a somewhat boring article regarding the recent Wall Street Journal scoop (speculation?) regarding the release of a Verizon iPhone in early 2011.
Siegler insinuates that WSJ author Yukari Iwatani Kane was “fed” this story (and several others) by Apple execs. The idea, of course, is that Apple can control the message by handing “scoops” to favored journalists at outlets such as the WSJ:
Now, I of course don’t know for sure that Apple fed WSJ this story — but let’s look at the recent history. In January, as rumors were swirling about the iPad, the WSJ had a story suggesting the tablet computer could run around $1,000. At the time, I pointed out why this reeked of Apple setting expectations low so they could blow them out of the water. A few days later, a former Marketing Manager at Apple backed this up. The result? Steve Jobs on stage announcing the iPad would start at just $499. Boom.
Enter Kara Swisher:
No game. HE. [SIEGLER] MADE. IT. UP. I knew the particulars of several of those stories and it was pure shoe leather reporting by Kane on them and she published them when they were done and not on some fictional schedule to help Apple.
I know it is super interesting to speculate otherwise, but it’s not the case and to smack around someone who does their job with fiction is the height of hackery.
BTW, I no longer work for the Journal, although we have the same owner (no, we don’t plit secretly together), but it’s simply unfair to a really good reporter.
Interesting.
Before reading Swisher’s comment, I didn’t even really think about Siegler’s claims. Now, though, it’s interesting to me when I consider this back-and-forth alongside the ongoing “turf wars” that are waged between professional bloggers and professional journalists.
It’s not surprising to me that tech bloggers, a group which tends to rely on anonymous sources and TMZ-styled reporting, would insinuate that mainstream journalists only get their stories by being handed privileged information on a silver platter.
The idea seems to be that journalists don’t ever have to do any real work.
Siegler never offers evidence of a cozy relationship between Apple and Kane, and Swisher seems to deny it.
I suspect the truth lay someone in the middle: The Journal likely has access to Apple and ears in the right places because of the way it operates and because of its cachet in the industry, but this is probably rooted in the sort of “shoe leather reporting” that Swisher mentions in her comment. Boring stuff like making calls, asking questions, waiting for responses, etc. You know: Journalism.
It’s really the difference between having respect, and not having it and bloggers are really touchy about the fact that they often don’t have it. Though, they do their best to make believe they don’t want or need it.
Still, none of that is the same thing as sitting around and waiting for Steve Jobs (or someone acting on Jobs’s behalf) to call in with a scoop, and that’s really what Siegler seems to believe is happening.
Yet, why would Kane continue to report scoops from a source that, according to Siegler, purposefully fed her false information regarding the price of the as-of-then unreleased iPad?
Doesn’t make much sense. In the end, this really starts to feel like the complaints/accusations of someone who is upset that a hard worker has been given opportunities.
