Only CNBC shocked at Apple's media rules
The sometimes bizarre rules produced by the inherent contradiction between Apple's culture of secrecy and its need for media attention are nothing new.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)Few reporters who cover Apple should be surprised to learn that it is a rather secretive and controlling company.
Most of us who regularly follow Apple are accustomed to rolling our eyes and chuckling at the bizarre restrictions company representatives sheepishly try to enforce at its events, such as requiring an escort for reporters who want to walk 100 yards away from the press room down a huge open hallway to use the bathroom at the Moscone Center, lest they ask Steve Jobs what he thinks of the Kindle, or something. It was therefore a bit surprising Wednesday to read CNBC's Jim Goldman loudly complaining about the fact that Apple doesn't allow laptops into its annual meeting, held earlier Wednesday at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.
Goldman's right about one thing: in this day and age, it's pretty silly for Apple to pretend that a public event can be held away from the reach of the Internet. Indeed, two shareholders published text-message updates of the meeting, which although quickly snapped up by the tech media hungry for any scrap of information related to Apple merely confirmed one thing most business reporters know about annual meetings: they are usually very boring.
But the ban on computers is nothing new for Apple: this is the third year I've attended an Apple annual meeting, and each year they've had the same restrictions in place spelled out for all attendees in the proxy statement that announces the date of the meeting. Similar bans on "electronic devices" have been in place since at least 2004, and before then, wireless mobile computing was relatively rare among the press corps.
Attendees at the meeting were herded into two lines just inside Apple's executive briefing center: one for shareholders, and one for the media. All guests were required to sign in with Apple, pass through a metal detector just like at an airport, and check any cameras, laptops, and phones with security after a bag search.
Several people managed to keep their phones, but Apple representatives in the overflow room--where media members were herded to watch the meeting on closed-circuit television--roamed the aisles asking anyone texting or checking e-mail on the sly to refrain from using those devices while the meeting was going on.
Those restrictions, while very silly, didn't prevent the media from thoroughly covering the event, which Goldman is alleging. "More like a 'prevent' than 'event,' I suppose," he wrote.
Rather, the restrictions prevented the media from live-blogging the event, which Goldman seems to think is the apex of transparent reporting but which in many cases produces a frenzied burst of typing and incomplete sentences that don't necessarily deliver a clear picture of what is happening. Does the public really want to read breathless minute-by-minute updates of Apple general counsel Dan Cooperman asking attendees to second a proposed motion?
Veteran reporters (Goldman has been in this business since I was in junior high) are well acquainted with the art of the call-in, where breaking news can be relayed quickly and clearly to a colleague at home base over that old-fashioned but still relevant device, the telephone.
If anything had actually happened at the event, there was nothing preventing reporters from doing just that within a matter of a minute following the news, and quickly getting that information out to the public. In fact, a bank of old-fashioned telephones was located just outside the overflow room where Goldman sat two rows behind me, watching the meeting.
Unlike other companies that covet press attention, Apple does not go out of its way to make it easy for reporters to cover the company. It never has, or at least it hasn't in the company's rise to the top of the tech industry over the past decade.
The fact that this is only now dawning on Goldman says an awful lot about the rare level of access to Apple to which he and CNBC have been accustomed over the past several years, access which prompted him to declare quite forcefully two months ago that rumors of Steve Jobs' ill health were insidious market manipulation when, in fact, they were true. Goldman's demeanor toward Apple seems to have soured since he was dressed down on his own network by Dan Lyons, the Newsweek columnist best known as the author of the Fake Steve Jobs blog, regarding his reporting on Jobs' health.
Are Apple's restrictions on computers at the annual meeting odd and excessive? Absolutely. Most big public companies provide a Webcast of their annual events so far-flung shareholders who have already voted their shares can watch.
But they are nothing new, and only delay, not prevent, reporters from filing stories that nothing happened at the meeting. And they are only in place for this one event a year; after initially balking at the idea of live-blogging at its regular press events--which were touted by Apple COO Tim Cook as a competitive advantage during Wednesday's annual meeting--Apple now bathes its press events in Wi-Fi and recently started providing power strips for the rows of live-bloggers. That might seem like a minor accommodation to other companies that provide lavish food, drink, and entertainment at their events to help draw press attention, but this is an idea that's only about a year old for Apple.
It seems as long as the famously private Steve Jobs is in charge, there are always going to be weird rules governing Apple's love-hate relationship with the media. Apple knows it needs media attention to help promote its products, but wants to prevent reporters from getting too close to the company and its executives lest they discover the company's Next Big Thing (or, even worse, the lack thereof).
It's frustrating, but challenging, and simply part of the game of covering Apple.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
This article reminded me of Apple's 1984 Mac commercial because now you can replace the mindless drones with Apple fans marching in to listen to Jobs talk on a screen... only thing is waiting to see who will be the one to throw the hammer at the screen.
You=Fail.
clamburgler makes a valid point; Apple is rather opaque compared with Microsoft, yet Apple is treated like saints. Everybody has access to Microsoft's product pipeline 2-4 years out; nobody is permitted knowledge of Apple's pipeline 2-4 days out.
Is that true you guys got so hypnotised by Steve Jobs, you try to support every stupidity Apple does?
How did microsoft end up in this conversation?
"How did microsoft end up in this conversation?"
It's the only way Apple followers can take the spotlight off their weird secret society. Reminds me of the Mason's.
Thanks for the laugh, canberra!
Wake up!!! Think Different!!! Using Apple just makes one poorer.
Yes, you are pretty much right on target in your statement. Some background... I switched to OS-X from Windows about a year and a half ago. This is after over 10 years with Windows and IT support thereof. Catalytic to my switch, were two events: (1) Microsoft released a product called, 'Vista', and (2) Apple decided to adopt a processor called, 'Intel'. Voila! A superior OS (OS-X) and can still do Windows. Have your Apple and eat it too, so to speak. Now, after some in depth experience with Apple, it's policies, modus operandi and it's OS, I am beginning to have a different take on Apple. Their OS is still superior to Windows IMHO and only bound to get better with Snow Leopard. BUT, with Apple's very dictatorial control (reminiscent of Hitler? Tojo? Mussolini?) and MS unofficially admitting they made a mistake with Vista and they now trying to 'rush' Windows 7 out the door and leave Vista behind them, I am tempted to go back to a Windows machine, at least a hybrid environment going forward. That is, a dedicated Mac, and a dedicated Windows machine. Unfortunately though this makes one's computing environment somewhat more complex. Apple does not want to license it's operating system. This all the more points to control. They are basically a hardware maker (actually they are not even that) and they make all their money by coming out with a new iteration every few months to keep people sinking into their wallets so they can have the newest, latest or greatest. If Apple were to license their OS and start competing with the myriad of vendors that exist, they may very well soon go down the tube. Look at their ongoing fight with Psytar and their concern of just a little tiny company like that. Their stranglehold on the public really is the OS-X factor. You want it? You MUST buy Apple equipment to use it.
You think it's ridiculous that someone calls something out as being ridiculous when you actually agree that it is ridiculous but just feel like everyone should put up with how ridiculous it is.
Awesome.
The point is that CNBC and Jim Goldman, after years of cheerleading for Apple on the nation's most influential business journalism network (and therefore having the red carpet rolled out for them at Apple events), are only now discovering that Apple attempts to exert a great deal of control over the media. Any member of the media who has ever dealt with Apple over the past decade knows this to be true, it's just that most people just don't talk about it in our writings based on the belief that our readers consider this kind of thing to be "inside baseball," or minutia that enthralls PR and media people but that the general public finds tiresome. Maybe that's the wrong way to look at it, but that's how it is inside most newsrooms, be they MSM, bloggers, or whatever.
So then Jim Goldman comes out with this missive this morning that suggests that because they won't let him bring his laptop into the building, Apple is attempting to prevent him from telling the whole truth about what happens at Apple's annual meeting. There were no less than 20 reporters from some of the biggest news outlets in the land at this meeting: Reuters, AP, Business Week, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Macworld, CNBC, CNET/CBS, ABC, and on and on. If something happened, it would get out, and get out quickly, regardless of Apple's silly restrictions. It's ludicrous to suggest that because Apple won't let you bring a laptop into the building, they are trying to "prevent" (his word) the media from covering the event.
Apple is under no obligation to make our lives as reporters easy, as frustrating a reality as that can be. What's funny/notable is that Jim Goldman considers that to be news, which I suppose is understandable after enjoying years of exclusive access to Apple.
you can bring your mother to (to meet more than one billionaire at once), so
why would a "veteran reporter" think that they would glean anything amazing
beyond regulation FD? I was in the overflow room, too, as a non-reporter
with unrestricted iPhone access. But why bother, really, let alone get
huffy about it, since it's all just entertainment to see the zecks wallow in
the mud with the kooks and the gadflies.
- by ferretboy88 March 1, 2009 7:34 AM PST
- Its like 1984 and Apple is big brother.
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- by shycelticwitch March 17, 2009 1:07 PM PDT
- Perhaps if Microsoft were as "opaque" as Apple, it wouldn't have so many holes in it's operating system... As a user of both Windows & Apple for more than 15 years, I think I am justified in saying that betwixt the two, Apple comes out on top in every aspect of it's software and user interface. We are called elitists, kool-aid drinkers, cultists and the like. But I can't think of a more intelligent group of people to belong to than one who understands the benefits of quality over mass production. My Windows computer is used solely for the purpose of opening Publisher files, as MS thinks this program is too good for Macs. Hasn't anyone told them that professional designers call it a "third grade art" program for beginners?
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(27 Comments)ferretboy... you better believe it. My Mac runs my entire household electrical system and security system... At the same time I am using it to run an advertising agency and design high end graphics. I would have set up the Windows computer to do this too, but relegated it to its current status because I got tired of windows popping up to ask me if I was "SURE" that I wanted to do this or that. How LAME is that?