Gruber posted something yesterday that is at least more like the type of explanation I would expect from a blogger who seems to enjoy lambasting the mistakes of others. Yet Gruber still sort of hides behind his source getting the story wrong and diverts blame to Apple’s semantics.
In other words, the tone of Gruber’s weak “oops, sorry” doesn’t match his previous post’s emphatic “But, trust me, it was AT&T’s decision.”
Om Malik was much more on target than Gruber was, because he used logic instead of a single un-named source. That source has now been either proven unreliable or Gruber has been proven to be negligent in thoroughly questioning that source. Either way, Gruber’s strong-toned “But, trust me, it was AT&T’s decision” dismissal of Malik’s spot on analysis of the situation reveals him to be, just like his source, untrustworthy, as well as a blogger, a journalist, and a pundit who must be taken with a grain of salt and compared to multiple other sources.
I think Gruber holds this odd spot in Mac blogging, where he himself has pulled a semantic trick similar to the one he faults Apple for pulling. People mistake him for being more professional because of the look and design of his site (it is quite well done) and the way the title of his posts always link out to someone else’s site. People see a lot of text, no pictures, and, at first glance, no ads. However, he carefully hides the ads right alongside all the other text on his site, semantically coached inside the label “sponsorship,” like this.
There’s nothing wrong with any of this. However, he is not as careful a blogger as he acts and he makes wild unfounded claims all the time. Some of them end up being right, but whenever they are wrong, like they were this time, he sidesteps it a bit, like he did in this case. My point is: don’t believe the hype. Think for yourself. Research this stuff thoroughly before you jump on the bandwagon crying for the blood of whoever Gruber is decrying. Please do the same for me. It keeps us all honest.
[Creative Commons image via iChris]
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