Is Forbes magazine anti-Apple?
That's the theory posted over at Valleywag on the heels of the Forbes cover story on Jobs' options backdating deposition. It looks like Forbes might have had some help finding the three hour deposition from someone formerly inside Apple. To break it down:
- Forbes is partially owned by Elevation Partners as of 2006
- Yes, the same Elevation Partners that invested heavily in the Palm Pre
- Elevation Partners includes Fred Anderson (former Apple CFO and Board member - who left Apple amid backdating scandal) who isn't the biggest SJobs fan. Little known fact: He was the CEO that Jobs replaced because he replaced Gil Amelio temporarily while the Apple Board talked Jobs into coming back.
- Obviously Jon Rubenstein, former Apple exec is part of Elevation partners and now chairman of Palm.
- Daniel "Fake Steve" Lyons wrote his often critical Apple views while at Forbes. He now works at Newsweek.
The question is: Can Forbes "rescue itself" from being critical of Apple in light of the fact that it is actually under the same umbrella organization as Palm? There is absolutely no hard evidence to suggest that Forbes is biased and they have written many pro-Aple articles in the past. Perhaps they should mention in their Palm and Apple stories that they are under the same umbrella organization as Apple competitor, Palm.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Facebook
Google
YahooLatest Stories on 9 to 5 Mac
- Set your alarm clocks, iPad pre-orders begin 5:30 AM PST
- Safari 4.05 released
- MacBook Pros may be joining Mac Pros in getting updates in the next few days
- Multitasking support in iPhoneOS 4.0?
- Steve Jobs' employment is a bargain for Apple
- Will the iPad make a great car gadget?
- Mac Pro 'hexacore' Xeon Core i7-980x coming Tuesday…or Friday?
AAPL Stock Coverage
225.5+0.66
9to5 Toys
USB Hard Drive Roundup: WD 320GB portable for $54 + free shipping, more
Western Digital 2TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive for $144 + free shipping
1-Year Magazine Subscriptions from $3: Entrepreneur, Men's Fitness, more
Kata GDC Series Camera Bag for $100 + free shipping
Shutter Release Cord for DSLR Cameras for $5 + free shipping
Poll
Recent comments
- $1000 was for a much more
2 min 17 sec ago - If apple made the iphone so
16 min 53 sec ago - How does pre-order work
19 min 16 sec ago - Only on "Everybody say dumb
35 min 37 sec ago - Mine is already on order. I
36 min 12 sec ago - Do you think we will be able
40 min 4 sec ago - eh?
41 min 13 sec ago - Uhhh...no it wouldn't. 8:30
42 min 14 sec ago - Uhh...8:30 pst would be 12:30
43 min 32 sec ago - Well the iPad IS cheap,
49 min 51 sec ago
Who's online
There are currently 3 users and 4 guests online.
Online users
- admin
- AppleRocks3
- jb2017
Comments (18)
I still don't know why should I care if Forbe's is anti or pro apple...
This is newsworthy & important, as they would have an agenda to destroy Apple to build up Palm. Very serious indeed.
If Forbes were to reveal confidential information like this, they could be in big trouble, and slapped with a lawsuit, as would Elevation & Palm.
People at Forbes can obviously write articles that are biased, or not, like any other company... management, however, would have a definite conflict of interest writing any investigative pieces on Apple, regarding matters that are closed... the only object would appear to be to destroy Apple's reputation, brand, and stock to benefit the parent company.
If I were Forbes, I would avoid any articles on Apple, accept the occasional fluff piece.
I think a better question is, does it have to?
I think a better question is: why is reporting at Forbes so lousy? Many articles I read from Forbes seem unthinkably weak in both accuracy and analysis.
Why pay attention to a 3rd rate publisher when numerous non-professional bloggers have better journalistic creds?
... as a matter of journalistic integrity, and provide the reader with that context so that the reader's opinion can be an informed one.
Forbes is the People magazine of the financial world.
As far as the Fake Steve Jobs project went, I never felt that Dan was anti-Apple. It was just a damn good satire.
Fake Steve Jobs was just some fun satire, but Lyon's raving anti-Apple sentiments and articles, im afraid, are NOT.
He is definitely Anti-Apple
Fake Steve Jobs was just some fun satire, but Lyon's raving anti-Apple sentiments and articles, im afraid, are NOT.
He is definitely Anti-Apple
I will read any of their future Apple articles with skepticism now that this has come to light.
They really need to disclose that they are partially owned by Elevation Partners (which is heavily invested in Palm).
.
Elevation Partners is a private equity group in which Bono, the singer in U2, is an investor and one of six partners. Interestingly, U2 has abandoned Apple, embraced the money from Blackberry (RIM) and invested in Palm. Strange things are happening!
So much of what happens at Forbes depends on both the integrity and tenacity of the journalist. You will see that the pro-Apple articles come from journalists both passionate and willing to stand up to the integrity of their article.
If, as you say, there is no evidence of an anti-Apple bias, then why write this post at all? Do you have an anti-Forbes bias? If you have reason to believe Forbes is biased, then spell them out in detail greater than some loose details of financial relationships. Be a journalist.
If Elevation owned a *controlling* share of either entity, then disclosure would be expected as standard procedure. But the linked documents, and everything I've seen, made it clear that it's a *minority* investor in Forbes Media, and its stake in Palm appears to be around 25-35%. So it's not really to be expected in this case, although if they wanted to avoid any appearance of bias, they might consider divulging that the same venture firm has invested heavily in both projects.
25% is a huge stake in any company. Hell, Jobs doesn't own nearly that much of Apple!!!
you're loosing an important fact here....Bono is one of the founders of Elevation Partners too... hence the word ELEVATION on the name (they recently acquered www.elevation.com domain name) and I think we all know they are good friends. Not that much lately maybe because of the RIM deal with U2's tour but I think they are doing very good...
you're loosing an important fact here....Bono is one of the founders of Elevation Partners too... hence the word ELEVATION on the name (they recently acquered www.elevation.com domain name) and I think we all know they are good friends. Not that much lately maybe because of the RIM deal with U2's tour but I think they are doing very good...
This is beyond stupid. You people are more paranoid than Republicans.
What a tangled web.