blame the press 21 of november, 1996 by johnmichael patrick monty monteith

We all knew what was going to happen on the first few days after the election. We all knew it was coming, but being the media gluttons we are, we eagerly watched the blame session begin anyway. From Bob Dole himself, all the way down the campaign line we heard the same thing: "the liberal press never gave us a chance." When all is said and done, if you judged what happened on the blame meter, you might have gotten the impression that the only people voting were people that believed nothing but what they see on the boob tube. Truth is, blaming the press is only a metaphor for saying "we screwed up".

Of course, it is not just politicians that use the old press excuse. Exxon, in their annual report after the Valdez incident, stated that the slumping sales was due to "negative press". You and I both know that the real reason Exxon’s sales went down the tube was because of a little accident on the way to the oil refineries. But, if saying that they are losing their shirts because of "negative press" makes the investors feel better, then why bother telling the truth? What advantage is there for Exxon to just come straight out and admit their mistakes when the perfect excuse is just begging to be used?

I get a good laugh every time I hear the press excuse. After all, they are the ultimate scapegoat. If you make a mistake, and the press reports it, then they must be the reason the mistake happened, right? Especially if sales or votes are involved. Who else could be to blame? The press has supreme control of everyone in this country, and if they say jump, we all respond "how high?" We are zombies of the media, you and I. If the press tells you that from now on you are going to have to walk backwards, they know that you’ll never bump into a wall face first again. At least, that is what these morons who use this excuse expect us to believe.

In fact, the old "it’s the media’s fault" line has come to symbolize the last act of defiance. After all, it was the press that informed the public the Titanic was unsinkable. I am quite positive that the deck hands on the Titanic were shouting out "damned press!" as the ship was sinking into the ocean depths. Perhaps the Pittsburgh Steelers last year should have blamed their loss on the media, too. Didn’t the press say the Steelers didn’t have a chance in hell of beating the Cowboys? Obviously they did exactly what the press said, right?

Now we are hearing this excuse being screamed from the deck of another sinking ship. Apple Computer is looking like, if not outright sinking, it is certainly leaking a bit. And the supporters of the company are leaking a lot more about how they blame the recent down-turn on the press. From Guy Kawasaki to Don Crabb you will hear the same load of bull: the press treats Microsoft like God, and Apple like the soft brown stuff.

Although this might be true, much like the Exxon Valdez, there are strong reasons for it. Microsoft, if you did not already figure this out, is one of the strongest companies in the world, making millions (billions) of dollars. Apple Computer, on the other hand, is having to do all sorts of tricky accounting to keep their quarterly reports in the black. Now why do you suppose Apple is not getting glowing press, and Microsoft is?

Certainly, the bad press is not helping Apple’s sales any. But the reason Apple is getting the bad press is because they have not helped their sales any, either. As soon as Apple starts doing something to give good press about, I can guarantee you the press will make it sound as though the phoenix is rising again. The public loves Apple Computer, and the press loves to please the public. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that if there was anything good to say about this computer company, it would have been said in spades.

Truth is that this year Apple Computer has been the source of nothing but bad news. They’ve continued to lose money, they’ve had buggy hardware and software, they’ve canceled key product upgrades completely, there has been much speculation of take-overs, their stock price has gone down the tube, the revolving door at the top levels continues to revolve, their market share is down to below 5%, they have sold precious few Macs and even fewer PowerBooks, the company has scared away even the most die-hard developers, they have yet to focus on any direction to get them out of this mess, and that is just to name a few. Now, why do you suppose Apple has been getting bad press?

To all of those folks out there that continue to use the tired old press excuse: Why not quit your whining and get to work fixing the real problem? Maybe it is just easier to blame the wrong folks? Or perhaps they’re just too scared to face the truth?