Holy cow, Tom – no wonder Daniel mocks you…I had never heard of you before, nor had I read his comments about your reporting (I came here through a link on another page, and don’t believe I had ever read this site before), but having read your loopy rant…well, I would mock you too!

Fish

Your rant above seems uncannily familiar, similar to today’s story of the resignation of Samantha Power (Obama aide) who, when she realised she had made a mistake (the “monster” comment) immediately told the reporter that that comment was “off the record.” But too late!

I fear thou doth protest too much Troy. It’s too late, the cat is out of the bag. You have a bad rep, and whatever you say now is only digging your hole deeper.

Daniel is a blogger. His words are his opinion and he answers to no-one but himself. Most of us here, as faithful readers, understand and respect this. We certainly don’t expect perfection from him, but we do expect better from you.

Yes, Woodward and Bernstein confirm information before they publish it. Most of the tech press is far less conscientious. Heck, even Fox News ran the ridiculous story that Senator Obama was a brainwashed muslim. High standards are a nice thing, too bad they are seldom equally applied.

Troy said: “That’s something that real reporters actually try to do, by the way; that is, offer a balanced view instead of a consistently optimistic — or pessimistic — one.”

Daniel is not a “real reporter”. He has no masthead, no editorial staff, and no photographer. He’s the 21st century version of the Town Crier, more like Thomas Paine than Thomas L. Friedman. He should have high standards, but not nearly as high as a professional journalist working for a retail news outlet.

Lastly, Troy, you make a mistake common to many journalists: being “balanced” or “impartial” means that there are two equal sides to every story. This is simply not true. Daniel is not biased in favor of Apple, the facts are biased in favor of Apple. But you can’t write that story, because it doesn’t seem “politically correct”.

Until the mainstream press starts to understand this, I will continue to read and support Daniel’s rants against the ill-informed, even if he does sometimes go too far.

Our agreement, as I understood it, was that we would try to deal with each other in good faith. That if you had questions about what I’ve written (and, by implication, what I’ve said), that you would contact me, and I’d be happy to talk to you about it — before you post.

My point was not to try to censor you, but for us to help each other — that your posts would be as accurate as possible, as would my stories.

But — to paraphrase Ronald Reagan — there you go again. You just couldn’t resist a chance to take another shot at me, could ya? And heaven forbid — if you were going to bring up the subject of our meeting — that you actually mention what we talked about.

Namely, that I didn’t feel like I could deal with you in good faith. That my experience had been that in raising an objection (or two) about what you had written, instead of having you address (and correct) that issue in an honest fashion, that you chose instead to use it as an excuse to take another shot at me in a blog entry.

And here you’re doing it again. I guess a leopard doesn’t change its spots, does it?

You asked for specifics on what was inaccurate about your coverage. Well, here goes a short list (I don’t have time to correct all of your errors of fact or implication):

1. Your “Fake Apple Scandals” No. 8 focused on a story that ran on our site that had a photo that wasn’t linked to the story. The story was about a scandal involving Wall Street analysts. The photo had to do with the iPhone. The two clearly didn’t go together.

In FAS No. 8, you labeled the move potentially libelous, explained to your readers how the Mercury News was contemptuous of Apple and concocted an elaborate conspiracy theory involving Bill Gates to explain why this was so. But, you suggested to faithful readers, the person who actually did the dirty deed of linking the iPhone and analysts scandal stories was likely me.

“Circumstantial evidence suggests (Wolverton’s) DNA could be all over it,” you wrote.

In fact, as I alerted you on Aug. 2, 2007 via an email I sent you then, I had nothing to do with the linking of the two articles. Nor was there any nefarious plot involving Bill Gates that led to the linking.

Instead, there was a problem with our automated publishing system that led to the linking. We corrected the problem as soon we were notified about it.

You did publish portions of our email in a post on Aug. 5. But you have yet to correct the original story or acknowledge your error.

Your original (still uncorrected) story is here:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/30/10-fas-8-san-jose-mercury-news%e2%80%99-false-apple-scandal/

Your follow (which you used to take new shots at me) is here:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/08/05/more-on-troy-wolverton-the-street-and-apple-scandal/

I’d be happy to forward to any of your readers the full email I sent you in August alerting you to your error.

2. You implied in FAS No. 8 and No. 9 that at the same time I was working at the Mercury News, I was also writing for CNET and for TheStreet.com.

Here’s a quote from FAS No. 9:

Wolverton is “part of the Street’s (sic) spam operation, but also scrounges up desperately sensationalist content for CNET. At the same time, he also comes off as a Fox-like idiot anchor for the San Jose Mercury News … ”

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/31/10-fas-9-troy-wolverton-neil-cavuto-and-the-apple-stock-scandal/

Here’s another from “More on Troy Wolverton, the Street, and Apple Scandal”

“… because Wolverton is also connected the Street, which operates as a sensationalist outlet for seeding false information designed to intentionally manipulate Apple’s stock price for profit. That’s a serious problem, because … Wolverton will continue to publish stories about Apple, and without clarification on his association with the Street, his reputation as a journalist–and that of the of the Mercury News for printing his work–is in serious question.”

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/08/05/more-on-troy-wolverton-the-street-and-apple-scandal/

In fact, whatever one might think of my work at any of those outlets (or of the outlets themselves), I did not write for any more than one at a time.

I worked as a reporter for CNET News.com from March 1999 to December 2002. I worked at TheStreet.com (note the correct spelling of the outlet) from December 2002 to September 2006. I have worked at the Mercury News since October 2006.

Aside from an article I wrote before I left TheStreet (note the correct second-reference spelling) that was published in October 2006, I’ve had no relationship with the company or its editorial coverage since then. I don’t work for TheStreet, I don’t write stories for the site (or its affiliates) and I’m not involved in its editorial decision making.

A simple search of TheStreet.com’s archives would have shown that TheStreet hasn’t published any articles under my byline since October 2006. And if you had gone to TheStreet’s masthead page (formerly its “Who’s Who” page), which lists all of its editorial employees (reporters and editors) you would have noticed that my name is conspicuously absent.

http://www.thestreet.com/static/about/masthead.html

Of course, you also could have contacted me, my editors here at the Mercury News or the editors at TheStreet.com, who would have told you the same thing. But far be it from you from doing what real reporters do on a daily basis, namely attempting to confirm information before they publish it.

3. Again in FAS No. 8, you charge that I “worried about” and “decried” Apple’s retail strategy, that I likened Apple to Wal-Mart while at the same time comparing “Apple’s retail prospects to Gateway’s retail failures” in the context of an article about the effect Apple’s stores were having on its resellers.

My article came “long after even the most pessimistic of analysts had begun lauding Apple’s retail store success,” you noted, implying that I too was a latter-day pessimist about Apple’s retail strategy.

In fact, had you read my articles or searched TheStreet’s site, you would have noticed that I was fairly bullish about Apple’s retail strategy.

Some two weeks before writing the article you mentioned (but failed to link to) about Apple’s resellers, I wrote a story about how well Apple’s retail stores were doing, and how they were one of the little talked about reasons for the company’s resurgence.

“The stores … have opened new channels for Apple’s products (and) acted as a billboard for the company, extending its brand. Further, they’ve given customers a chance to test the company’s products, an important factor, particularly in the computer arena, because Apple’s wares are so distinct from those of its competitors,” I wrote.

“The stores may be a significant reason Apple has gained share in the computer market,” I added.

Instead of comparing Apple’s retail effort to Gateway, I contrasted it:

“People have had their doubts about Apple’s stores from the onset, something that inevitably drew comparisons to Gateway’s failed store effort. Gateway closed its retail division last year as part of an effort to cut costs.

“In contrast, Apple went in the other direction, as the company showed again last month when it reported second-quarter earnings. In the most recent quarter, Apple’s retail division … far outpac(ed) the company’s overall sales growth. And that wasn’t just a one-quarter fluke. ”

To be sure, the article didn’t just highlight the success of the stores. Instead, it also looked at some of the potential risks for Apple with its retail strategy. (That’s something that real reporters actually try to do, by the way; that is, offer a balanced view instead of a consistently optimistic — or pessimistic — one.)

Having covered the retail industry before covering Apple, I knew a little something about the risks that retailers in general face and talked to some industry experts about them. Among the risks I highlighted: the potential that Apple would soon run out of desirable locations of its stores, the inevitable aging of its store base, the potential that it could run out of hit products and the intense competition in electronics.

But as I noted, few expected Apple’s retail effort to be derailed by those risks:

“As long as the company can continue to unveil new, hot products, Apple stores will help push its growth, analysts say,” I wrote.

Your readers can find the full story here:

Apple’s chain reaction
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10236170/1.html

I did follow that story up with the one you highlighted. But instead of that story being pessimistic about Apple’s retail efforts, it took a much more nuanced approach (something you might want to try sometime, Daniel).

Apple’s stores were successful, but at least some of their success seemed to be coming at the expense of some of the company’s long-time resellers, that story reported. In it, I specifically mentioned a reseller in Honolulu who claimed that she had lost half her business since Apple opened a store nearby.

As the article noted, the idea that resellers were being hurt by Apple’s stores could be a problem for Apple. At the time, it still at the time got a sizable portion of its overall sales from its reseller network. But the article also acknowledged that Apple was aware of the potential problem.

And the article went on to note that other resellers had seen no effect from Apple store openings and there was the possibility that some resellers might benefit from them, because “they help promote Apple’s products to customers who are considering the Mac platform and allow consumers to test them.”

The point about Wal-Mart was a quote from an analyst, who was not saying that Apple’s stores are as nameless and faceless (i.e., homogenous) as Wal-Mart’s. Instead, essentially he was saying that chain stores such as Wal-Mart’s and Apple’s were displacing independent businesses. This is a long-term, nationwide trend.

In other words, the problems faced by mom-and-pop Apple resellers are not all that different from mom-and-pop operators of other kinds of retail stores. It’s not so much that they’re going up against Apple, it’s that Americans are increasingly turning away from mom-and-pops vendors to shop at chain stores, where they have a pretty good idea going in what the experience is going to be like.

Your readers can find that article here:

Apple Store Success Rankles Some Resellers
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10238573/1/apple-store-success-rankles-some-resellers.html

(It would be nice, btw, Daniel, if you consistently followed the general protocol among bloggers and link to the articles you refer to — or even criticize. That way your readers can make up their own minds about whether your take is accurate — or not.)

And with that, that’s about all I have time for today — and I really haven’t gotten past (nor mentioned all the errors in) the very first article you wrote about me.

Too many errors, too little time.

Enjoy Dallas, try to catch a Mav’s game if you can get tickets.

I do look forward to reading all your articles, even those that venture into politics and motocrossing.

Keep up the great work!