Daily Crap: NY Times accuses Apple of 'access journalism'

The poor New York Times is not getting respect from every fashion-conscious geek's favorite brand, Apple.

Apple released a new version of its Mac OS, and they didn't give the Times an advance copy. They added insult to injury by granting Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal an exclusive interview with the company's president. A journalistic coup, and the NYT was nowhere to be found:

DailyTech - Report: Apple Blacklists The New York Times After iEconomy Report: "Apple is currently preparing for the release of its latest operating system, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. With such a release comes previews of the OS, which are typically granted to only certain media outlets. The Times used to be on that list, but it appears Apple refused to grant it that access to Mountain Lion.

According to The Washington Post, the Times ended up having to cite Apple's press releases as well as other publications for its OS X 10.8 review. To top it off, its report hit the internet late, which was described as an embarrassment for the Times.

"They are playing access journalism," said an anonymous source at The New York Times. "I've heard it from people inside Apple. They said, look, you guys are going to get less access based on the iEconomy series.""

The Times, for its part, was actually trying to play 'newspaper' in covering Apple's atrocious record on sweatshop labor at its Chinese suppliers. Back in the day, this would be considered the bread and butter of the journalism profession.

Along the way, however, the New York Times got itself sucked into a bit of "access journalism" of its own.

We remember well the job Judy Miller did in the run-up to the Iraq war. She essentially served as Scooter Libby's personal conduit into the news columns of the paper of record.

That won the Times lots of scoops, and while the mood in the country was festive and blowhards of all stripes were patting themselves on the back for the USA's big achievement, the NYT was riding high, too. They could do no wrong.

That is, until it all started to blow up in their faces. Those smoking guns that were supposed to turn into mushroom clouds? Never existed. It was all a lie, one that the Times scooped up like a fat, smelly dog turd and ran with.

Then there was the warrantless wiretapping story, which the Times sat on for a year -- through the 2004 elections, incidentally, which may have materially affected the outcome -- before finally allowing it to be published. What kind of leverage does a partisan political operation have over the "newspaper of record"

Could the cluster of grapes BushCo dangled over the Times have been exclusive access to newsmakers? Isn't that the same thing, incidentally, the WaPo was accused of selling, when it offered sit-down sessions with their top-flight reporters -- for a hefty fee, of course?

The news business is a smelly, completely compromised and craven institution that acts just like the other corporate fat cats in doing its part to prop up the status quo.

What Apple does is unconscionable, but we expect mega corporations to be all about rapacity and insatiable greed, while at one time there was at least the popular image of the crusading newspaper editor afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted.

Now, we're all afflicted and fuck'd.