YADR (Yet Another Dvorak Rebuttal)

Well, John Dvorak is at it again. I really should just ignore him like I always do, but for some reason, I felt compelled to respond. Call it the straw that broke the camel's back, or whatever you like. I've posted his article in sections with my replies following in italics. (Considering I'm using this as an editorial piece, I would think this is fair use). Whatever you call it, here goes:

See Dvorak's original article here: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1872175,00.asp

Media Bias and Technology Reporting
ARTICLE DATE:  10.17.05
By  John C. Dvorak
As big and as important as Microsoft is, the coverage of the company is quite mediocre. This is particularly true in the mainstream press. The reason for this is that today's newspaper and magazine tech writers know little about computers and are all Mac users. It's a fact.

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It's a fact, eh? Well, being the esteemed journalist you claim to be, you shouldn't have any problems backing that "fact" up. Let's see it, Dvorak: provide definitive evidence that your tech writer colleagues "know little about computers." You arrogantly presume that if someone prefers a Mac over a Windows PC, that they must be technically illiterate. The job qualifications alone for a tech writer require familiarity with all sorts of technology. How could any decent writer make any sort of informed comparison without familiarizing himself with the various options available? Do you honestly think that the tech columnists for publications like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal would be able to keep their jobs if they were unfamiliar with Windows, which is what 95% of their readership uses?

This must be some sort of flame bait designed to draw clicks to your article, because I can't imagine any other reason for making such an uninformed, idiotic blanket statement. In three short sentences, you insult and alienate not only the majority of the high-profile tech press (99% of whom are much more respectable and knowledgeable than you appear to be), but also anyone who chooses a Mac over Windows.

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This is why when Microsoft actually does have a good idea, people look to trash it out of hand. With 90 percent of the mainstream writers being Mac users, what would you expect? The top columnists in the news and business magazines fit this model too. The technology writers fit this model. The tech writers and tech columnists for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Fortune are all Mac users. I could list them by name, but I'd hate to leave one out. Maybe I'll blog them by name. I could list 50. Readers should thus not be surprised by the overcoverage of Apple Computer. Every time Steve Jobs sneezes there is a collective chorus of "Gesundheit" from tech writers pounding away on their Macs.

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Did you pause to think that, just maybe, the reason that the press pays attention to Apple is because Apple has a proven track record of establishing tech trends and coming up with generally useful and innovative technology? Or that maybe the reason that the press largely ignores Microsoft is because they really haven't done anything much worth writing about? Perhaps your colleagues have chosen to use Macs because they find them to be more productive for their needs. Maybe, like many people are now discovering, they find Mac OS X to be a superior user experience than Windows. Given the generally user-hostile environment of Windows, could you really blame them?

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This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer. With no Microsoft-centric frame of reference, Microsoft cannot look good. The company essentially brought this on itself with various PR and marketing policies that discouraged knowledgeable coverage. I'll save those complaints for a future gripe session.

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Again, you presume that someone who chooses not to use Windows does so out of ignorance. My experience finds the opposite to be true: the majority of Windows users are unfamiliar with (or at least unexperienced with) the Mac. However, unlike you suggest, most Mac users are quite familiar with Windows, by sheer virtue of the fact that Windows is everywhere. Who hasn't had to learn to use it in their work or education somewhere along the line? Maybe not with the proficiency of, say, a MCSE professional, but most people have a basic working knowledge of some iteration of Windows.

Oh, and since you brought it up -- what makes someone "qualified" to use Windows? Obviously, the folks that are paid to write about technology fall short of your standard. Is Windows so complicated and unintuitive that one must be somehow deemed "qualified" to even use it? If that's the case, then 95% of the people that use Windows every day in some aspect of their job aren't qualified to use it. The only people who seem impassioned about Microsoft are people whose livelihoods rely on supporting or writing about Microsoft products. Yes, I'm looking at you, Dvorak...along with nearly the entire IT industry. What does it say about a company's products when it requires a global army of (expensively) trained technicians just to keep the basics up and running? To me, that speaks volumes for Windows as an operating environment.

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What's bad for Microsoft is that the bias against it is subtle?kind of like any sort of media bias, whether religious or political. As one critic once said regarding the supposed left-wing slant of the daily news media, "It's not what they write, it's what they write ABOUT that matters." Story selection. Microsoft can roll out a dozen cool products, and the media goes ga-ga over the video iPod?a rather late-to-market Apple product. They all swoon over the prospect of paying $2 to download an otherwise free TV show so they can have the privilege of watching it on a 2-inch screen.

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I don't think there have been a dozen cool Microsoft products in total. There was the Xbox, and Halo. There was the biometric fingerprint ID pad, and arguably a couple of its input peripherals. Their operating systems should impact the list negatively, since they tend to create far more problems than they solve. My point is, Microsoft isn't creating any stories here for the press to report. It's the same crap year after year, only with higher system requirements and more draconian activation schemes. Microsoft can't create a buzz about its products, because there's nothing buzzworthy coming out of Redmond. Apple, on the other hand, plays the press like a bard with a lute, and usually, the products they announce trailblaze a new direction for a good part of the tech industry. Everyone wants to know what Apple's next idea will be, because most of their ideas are gold mines.

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The newsroom editors are generally so out of touch that they can't see this bias. Besides, they use Macs too. There are entire newsrooms, such as the one at Forbes, that consist entirely of Macintoshes. Apparently nobody but me finds this weird.

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Why would using the most efficient tool for any particular job be "weird?" You're just burning bridges left and right, aren't you? I hope this job continues to work out for you, because I'd be hard pressed to hire you if I were an editor looking at your resume and you had just summarily dismissed my colleagues and me as morons.

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Even Jack Shafer, who recently wrote about Apple's skewed coverage in Slate fails to point out the connection between the skewed coverage and the existence of this peculiar conflict of interest based on the national writers' use of Macs.
I often confront these guys with this assertion, and they, to a man (I've never confronted a female reporter about this), all say that they use a Mac "because it is better." Right. And that attitude doesn't affect coverage now, does it?

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To an objective reporter, no, it doesn't. Of course, I'm not surprised at your incredulity at such a notion, given your time-tested bias against Apple and the Mac in general (and now, apparently, Mac users). I mean, if an esteemed journalist such as yourself can be just the slightest bit biased, then there can be no doubt the rest of those lesser writers are just transparent Apple shills.

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Now this phenomenon is nothing new. I mean the phenomenon that an analyst will compare everything to his or her personal preferences, and naturally do it to excess. I first observed this during the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, when all the writers, myself included, used WordStar. Everyone used WordStar. I would run into writers here and there and grill them about what they used. Anne Rice used WordStar, for example. Thus, when a new word processor came out, it was naturally compared to WordStar and, unless it was a clone of WordStar, it was always given poor marks. It was only the catastrophic failure of the WordStar company that ever allowed the competition to take over.

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This is understandable, and is only human nature. We relate what we know. The Mac OS has traditionally been the benchmark against which all other GUI-based operating systems are compared...Why do you think that is? It certainly wasn't because of the business model around which it was built.

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Probably the smartest thing Microsoft could ever have done was copy as much of the Mac OS as it could insofar as look and feel were concerned, since in the final analysis there were customers doing AB comparisons between the Mac and the PC?which kept the PC on the desktop. The PC was cheaper and seemed about the same functionally.

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From a business standpoint, it was a brilliant move, but I predict it will end up being their undoing. Now that Windows has saturated the world's desktops, people are starting to realize that Microsoft isn't the only solution available. In Microsoft's push to conquer the world, they miscalculated one very important factor: people aren't sheep. The novelty of the computer has worn off, and now that people are beginning to rely on computers for multiple facets of their lives, they are starting to become aware of the quality and security issues that plague Windows. The world won't tolerate unreliable products for much longer, and unless Microsoft truly starts to innovate and change their underlying culture, there will be a steady exodus of defectors to alternate platforms like Mac OS X and Linux. The time of luring people with bargain basement system prices is nearing an end; the writing is on the wall.

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Microsoft should make some headway with this biased crowd once the fanciful Xbox 360 arrives. It's got a creative GUI, is easy to use and navigate, and kind of has a Mac look to it. It also interfaces perfectly with the iPod. "Oh golly gee whiz wow!" And that feature alone will be the clincher.

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I know many Mac users who own Xboxes. They own and use them for (imagine this): gaming. An Xbox isn't a computer, John...even an unqualified Mac user knows that!