As the news of XCodeGhost continues to spread this morning I ran across a small blog with a big opinion. When it comes to Apple, news outlets of all kinds scamper to cover the latest from Apple and for the most part readers are interested in reading it. But that begs the question. Does the tech press (or the press in general) handle Apple news with kid gloves?
XCodeGhost is the largest hack into the Apple ecosystem ever and it has already infected hundreds of apps and affected millions of users. As the news reports start to be posted and headlines written, I couldn’t help but notice a deflection of blame. Fortune is placing blame on China’s Internet controls as to why developers avoided downloading the legit copy of XCode from Apple’s servers. Fox News refers to Palo Alto Network’s claims that before this Apple ever only had 5 apps infected by malware. CNN Money chose to concentrate its reporting on China, implying the hack really affects Chinese users.
Apple just had the worst hacking in the history of mankind. 344 (so far) apps have been hacked by XCodeGhost. From just one of the hacked apps (WeChat), 200 million potential iOS users got hacked. And the valley tech shills are doing all sorts of free damage control for Apple. –Scott Wilson
Is the media heavily involved in damage control for Apple when negative news happens to arise? How deep do Apple’s hands actually reach into the media at large? Being a small outlet ourselves and independently owned, we have no interest in protecting any company from bad press. We first reported XCodeGhost affecting Chinese users only but since have new information which points to it possibly affecting more apps than first thought.
The famous Apple blacklist could be one reason media outlets choose to dumb down their reports or make excuses or deflect blame from Apple. Apple news is a big traffic driver and having access to the company’s first hand press releases and inside news is huge. Thing is, if Apple doesn’t like what you’re writing they will cut you off from those assets which in turn means you won’t have first hand news of the company’s offerings or news.
Mark my words. These unethical shills are already busy writing their “all phones are bad” story. This despite Android never having a single mass phone hacking compared to the FIVE that Apple has had. To deflect from Apple’s worst in industry security, they’ll say it’s all phones. iOS Extortion Hack Australia, iOS Extortion Hack California, The Fappening, Keyraider and XCodeGhost. –Scott Wilson
I’m of the opinion that all operating systems have vulnerabilities and nothing is truly unhackable. So does Scott’s editorial lose some ground once Apple’s security is compared to Android’s? I do agree with him that some journalists have an interest in keeping the bad Apple news to a dull roar. But once you start comparing one OS against another you’ve taken a side and that alone hurts your objectivity. Do iOS, OS X and Apple in general suffer from security issues? Yes, of course all companies have their issues. Does Apple work with media to present a better image of themselves? Yes, I think they do.
Writing and reporting on the news is a fine line, we all have products we like and sometimes keeping your personal feelings aside is hard. I happen to use iOS, Android, Windows Phone and OS X. I like all of them but there’s stuff not to like as well. Companies like Apple and Google should thank objective reporting because it pushes them to make things better for all users. A lot of our job is to give an objective opinion so that our readers can make informed choices. Bending to Apple’s will is not in the best interest of any reader but reporting based on a deep dislike for something is also not in the readers best interest.
What do you think? Does the media handle Apple news with kid gloves? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
