With new rumors about the much anticipated Apple tablet hitting Monday, it seems fair to ask how one is supposed to decode the storms of speculation that have long whirled around the company and its products.
Some thrive on rumor and innuendo about Apple – the largely well-regarded Macrumors attracts over 6 million unique visitors per month, AppleInsider nearly a million – and with Apple’s penchant for absolute secrecy over its design department and product development it’s no surprise whispers and baseless fantasy comprise much of what passes for “news” about Apple.
If Apple really is coming out with a tablet in October, or AT&T really is going to open tethering to the US iPhone market in September (a persistent rumor AT&T continues to deny with respect to both price and timing), does it benefit anyone to know about it now? And if it turns out there is (again) no tablet, or that tethering comes tomorrow for free (you wish), how does that affect the way one is supposed to receive the next rumored news item about what they’re up to in Cupertino?
These questions are one small aspect of the larger debate about the ways news and journalism are changing in the Internet age. Traditional news organizations have been cutting resources for true investigative journalism for years, in favor of selling ads and eyeballs with cheap sensationalism, in part because it often seems that’s what the public wants, but also because it’s easier to publish a rumor than it is to get at the truth or to take time to think about and craft a well-reasoned opinion piece.
Monday’s rumor about the Apple tablet originated with a report at the China Times, which is no tabloid sheet, and appears to be based on information about companies high up in the Apple supply chain that a respectable news organization would be able to source and confirm before printing as news. Do standards of journalistic ethics prevail at major news organizations in Asia? Have budgets for investigative journalism survived the impulse to feed the public’s insatiable desire for knowing what the future holds?
The answer to such questions holds the key to understanding how to receive a report about what Apple has up its sleeve. What you believe comes down to whatever you can know for yourself and who you can trust to tell you the truth. Ultimately, no one really knows until the lights come up at the next Apple “event” – and, after all, anticipation is more intoxicating than feeling you already know what’s coming.
