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

October 13, 2006

speculation

It’s official, tech news gets mixed with rumors

Posted Oct. 13, ’06, 9:31 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Apple » Speculation

News I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop on PC Magazine’s announcement that Nick DePlume would join them. I’ve followed Think Secret for some time now, mostly for entertainment purposes. Their record is speckled at best and it’s more fun to use it as an indicator of what Mac fans would like to see.

The other shoe has finally dropped. I’ve apparently been sleeping as there have been two other “OpenApple” articles by Nick. This is the first I’ve seen it carried by a major news source. ABC News is willing to publish this rumor as fact. Note that nowhere in the text does it claim to be anything but a hard news report.

Now, they may very well be right that Apple will add “Lasso”, a spreadsheet application to its iWork suite, but when did this kind of speculation become the bread and butter of technology news reporting? I’ve noticed that analyst speculation has become a regular addition to the news, but now we’ve got outright rumor reporting. Are we on a slippery slope that has no clear distinction of hope and fact? I hope not.


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