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NY Times Tries to Untangle Analysts and Shills
twitter writes "The Register and others are examining a New York Times effort to eliminate bias from technology reporting by not echoing paid opinions. (Other coverage here.) They target Microsoft specifically. InfoWorld has an insightful summary of the two sides of this old debate. Fake think tanks, dubious sponsored research, and Astroturf are not considered but should be. Companies using these tactics deserve to be held at arm's length, but that's hard to do when the company is also a monopoly able to make or break any 'expert.' It would be refreshing to see the New York Times discover the FSF, opensource.org, EFF, and other sources of computing expertise."
From the article:
What everyone seems to be missing here is that the problem isn't just restricted to tech stories; their track record is just as bad when it comes to real world news. Remember Judith Miller and the "proof" about Iraq's WMD--the one they wound up apologizing for, years after we'd gotten mired in Vietnam II? Of course, it's a step up from citing totally made up sources (e.g. Jason Blaire's "composite" sources), but not by much.
They used to be the paper of record, but now they're just another waste of dead tree pulp.
--MarkusQ
Key quote being "had The Times known of Mr. Enderle's work for Microsoft, it would not have sought out his opinion on the product". I don't know if this link will work for everyone, since it's a search result link, but doing a search on the nytimes.com main page for "enderle" turns up this as the first result.
0 DE1DC1F3FF933A25752C1A9609C8B63
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=99
Editors' Note
Published: November 10, 2006
An article in Business Day on Tuesday described a decision by Microsoft to offer movies and episodes of television shows for downloading through its Xbox Live online service in the United States.
The article quoted Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, discussing the features that set Xbox Live service apart and its position in the market.
But the article did not note that Mr. Enderle had Microsoft as a client, a fact later pointed out by a reader. Mr. Enderle does consulting work for several of Microsoft's product groups, though not for the one developing the Xbox; still, had The Times known of Mr. Enderle's work for Microsoft, it would not have sought out his opinion on the product.
Complete lack of bias is nearly impossible to find, and that is not entirely the point. There are a couple of differentiators between organizations like the FSF and the other organizations in question:
1. They are not being paid to have the bias they have
2. They are not claiming to be an unbiased, independent third party
The problem with fake think tanks, astroturfers, etc. is that they are pretending to be an objective source when in reality they are being compensated to have the opinion that they do.
Nonetheless, Richard Stallman and the like are upfront/open on their (ideological) reasoning, therefor transparent, which make them very good experts.
And they don't work through straw men to appear unbiased.
Asking Microsoft why they think people should upgrade to Vista is fine, and I hope New York Times will continue to do so. Microsoft is openly and obviously biased with regard to their own products, and getting their side of the story is valuable.
The problem is when you ask some "independent analyst" for their opinion on a possible upgrade, and that analyst happens to be funded by Microsoft.
Bias is not a problem, hidden bias is a problem.