News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

October 23, 2006

ipod

Anti-iPod writer has ties with Creative

Posted Oct. 23, ’06, 8:42 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iPod

sponsors.jpgOne of the comments on my story yesterday about mountaineer and iPod jeerer Neal Mueller pointed me towards an interesting fact on Mueller’s website. It seems that under the list of sponsor companies that have provided him with gear on his climbs, you’ll find Creative Labs (click the picture above for the full screenshot). If you’ll recall from the piece, Mueller took the iPod to task for dying on the climb, whereas his Creative MuVo kept on trucking. If you click on the link to Creative on Mueller’s sponsor page, it take you to the product page for the MuVo, meaning, I presume, that the player was given to him by Creative.

I’m not suggesting that the story of the iPod dying and the MuVo surviving are in anyway untrue. Nor am I accusing Mueller of being some sort of shill. I do, however, think it’s irresponsible of him to not disclose his relationship with Creative, if in fact the player was given to him. Despite the fact that Mueller isn’t a journalist, this piece appeared in a major national newspaper. It seems to me a move of questionable integrity.

As I said in yesterday’s piece, I totally respect Mueller’s right to express his opinion on the iPod, though I wish he would base it on accurate facts.


1 Comments

Jesse Wilson said:

Finally took the time to read the article and it's immediately apparent this isn't just an opinion piece, but rather a blatant promotion for Creative's player.

It's really quite disappointing to see so many 'respected' news sites promoting such pieces of... can we even call it journalism? Sad really.

October 26, 2006 9:27 PM

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