I've subscribed to The New York Times for over a decade now and ... I just give up. This paper is so pro-Apple and so anti-Microsoft that it's hard to excuse anymore. It's blatant, it's constant, and it's too much.
This is just the latest example, and it's admittedly a small one. But understand that this is something I notice all the time, and for whatever reason the proverbial final straw has been compromised:
Today, the NYT published a report about the stress between Twitter and the makers of Twitter apps. Twitter is being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission for potentially anticompetitive behavior towards Twitter app makers. Twitter, you see, has purchased a handful of Twitter apps, disadvantaging others, and it's appropriated features from other Twitter apps for use in the core service.
Forgetting for a moment that Twitter isn't exactly a money making machine, if you were to think of a modern tech company that has a stressful relationship with its apps makers because that tech company has stolen features from them and used those features in its own products, which company would you think of? Can you think of one?
The New York Times did. And no, it wasn't Apple. This is the example they used to put Twitter's behavior towards apps developers in perspective:
When Microsoft built memory managers into Windows, for example, it pushed aside start-ups that had built similar tools.
Um. What?
First of all, Microsoft's memory management battles were from MS-DOS, not Windows. And that happened in the early- to mid-1990's. Over 15 years ago. And memory management, obviously, is a core OS feature. So Microsoft wanting to integrate that functionality into its own OSes actually makes sense. And is defensible.
But can we think of a modern tech company that aggressively steals ideas from its own app makers ... today? A company that, say, holds up or denies apps submissions to its marketplace, only to then implement features and even logos from those apps in its own products? Does any one company come to mind? A company that, much more so than Twitter, if only because of the money involved, really does deserve to be investigated by the FTC? Anyone?
Apple. Of course.
So how does this article reference Apple? I mean, surely, this company must be used an example of some kind, right?
Nope. The word "Apple" appears in this 1200 word article exactly once. In this positive, feel-good sentence:
The symbiotic relationship between Twitter and its apps is common in the tech world. Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook grew quickly in part because they let developers use their technologies to build tools.
This isn't the first time the NYT has let its cozy relationship with Apple get in the way of news, and it certainly won't be the last. This periodical has a responsibility, as the "paper of record," to get this stuff right. But it doesn't, not with its technology reporting at least. And I feel that its behavior is both deliberate and with malice. What really kills me is that hundreds of thousands of innocent, normal people read this crap every single day and buy into its version of reality. I expect that behavior from Fox News, but not from the New York Times. This is unacceptable for a mainstream publication that's supposed to have checks and balances.
