“What actual reporting can you possibly do that delivers anything of value more than the infomercial—light on the info, heavy on the ’mercial—that the conventions have become?” he asked haughtily. To Mr. Jarvis, sending so many reporters to cover an event—one that nominated a major contender for the President of the United States of America—was a self-indulgent waste. He marveled at the many other, more meaningful things they could have covered instead. His question: “Can we in the strapped news business afford this luxury?”
No, I suppose we can’t. And if we can’t, perhaps we should also strike a far more egregious expense from our news budgets: covering Apple press events. You know, the twice or often thrice yearly events that bring everyone out to Cupertino, where they stand in line and contribute a few licks to the collective rim job the press loves to give Apple. This three-decade-long media mainstay has reached its frenzied apogee in recent years. That may explain why Apple’s Wikipedia page is now tattooed with well over 50 variants of “announced” and “introduced” (compared to Microsoft’s 7, and Dell’s 19).
