Ah, fall. Time for the kids to return to school, the birds to fly south, and the publicity wizards at Apple Computer Inc. to milk our tender reporter emotions with strategically planted rumors about yet another big, “mysterious,” and therefore momentous launch of an as yet unseen, but certainly wonderful Apple product.
In the latest iteration of Apple’s foolproof mind game, the company electronically invited journalists to a “special event” in San Francisco next Tuesday. A two-word message, framed by Hollywood-style spotlights, was enough to set off the latest fit of Apple convulsions: “It’s Showtime.”
“Apple invitation fuels speculation it may distribute movies online,” read the “Breaking News” headline in the San Jose Mercury News, the prime media offender this time. Its subhed: “MYSTERY PROMPTS FRENZY OF OTHER RUMORS ABOUT NEW PRODUCTS.”
The Merc‘s next three paragraphs were a fairly incredible abdication of fact-finding:
One rumor has Apple Computer announcing it will begin to sell full-length movies that can be downloaded at its iTunes store.
Another predicts the Cupertino company will start to sell video iPods with bigger screens. Or maybe it will be an iTunes cell phone. Still another has the company selling a video streaming device that could put video on any screen in the home, including the television.
They all might be true. What seems certain is that Tuesday in San Francisco, Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, will don his trademark black turtleneck shirt and jeans, take the stage at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theatre and unveil new products and services, striving to cast an iPod spell on the Christmas shopping season.
But the tireless newspaper did not stop there, adding that an Apple spokesman “declined to comment about the speculation or about the company’s marketing strategy.” And that strategy vis-à-vis “speculation” (where oh where does it come from?) was paying off handsomely: “Apple’s stock rose 4.5 percent, or $3.10 a share, to $71.48, on speculation around the Tuesday event.”
“The invitation itself contains a few big hints,” teased the Merc. “Spotlights scan the sky on a black, gray and white background, illuminating the Apple logo in the center. ‘It’s Showtime’ may be the biggest clue and one that has led Apple aficionados to wide speculation.”
By this point, six paragraphs deep into this particular anti-story, Merc readers have been subjected to five instances of “speculation” and exposed to four rumors. The Merc‘s first identifiable source does not clarify much, with Jupiter Research’s research director, Michael Gartenberg, saying Apple could be going into long-form video, or “perhaps motion pictures”: “Whether it’s a rental or subscription model or on what devices, I can’t say. With Steve Jobs, it can always be one more thing as well.” (Ah, the Jobs surprise factor — never to be discounted.)
Another analyst agrees that “it’s likely going to be movie related.” “But,” the Merc hastens to add, “‘It’s Showtime’ could just refer to the show that Jobs will put on. Not everyone believes the announcement is only going to be about movies.”
There follows, essentially, the idea that we are now in iPod season, with Larry Angell, a senior editor at a publication devoted to Apple products, speculating thus: “Apple’s not going to let last year’s models sit on shelves for the second straight holiday shopping season. The only question is whether Apple has a radically new iPod ready or if we’ll see more minor revisions.”
Scratch that — maybe Apple will unveil a “home media product.” Angell’s not sure, and nor is the Mercury News.
But its article, mercifully, is over.
Correction: A reader points out that we engaged in some speculation ourselves when we wrote that Apple “strategically planted rumors” — a line that was added to the above item during editing. The reader’s point is well-taken. We have no hard evidence that the rumors were planted by Apple.
— CJR Daily
Edward B. Colby was a writer at CJR Daily.