Let's Get 7 in IELTS

At the risk of igniting yet another flurry of Apple v PC fervour, and with a heavy heart at returning to the subject so soon, Stephen Fry, who we love and admire, took a pop at the BBC over the weekend for not doing enough stories about Apple products. 

It's a criticism I haven't heard before. He feels we are running scared of an anti-Apple community backlash. My colleague, online technology editor Darren Waters, has written this heartfelt response to Stephen who's clearly now a signed up member of the anti-anti Apple Community (if that's possible).

By Darren Waters

I feel a little uneasy disagreeing with a national treasure, but I must take issue with Stephen Fry's comments about the BBC technology site in his latest Guardian Dork Talk column.

Stephen's an educated and interesting columnist on technology, but unless he's been popping into our editorial meetings each morning without my knowledge, I don't see how he would know how we decide which stories to cover.

 

As editor of the technology section, it is my job, with the help of my colleagues, to decide which stories we write about.

 

And even if Stephen had popped in to see us - and by the way, he's welcome any time - he wouldn't have seen or heard us discuss, debate, or even mention not doing any legitimate stories about Apple because we fear an anti-Apple community backlash.

 

The reality of writing about any subject which engenders passions - and technology is definitely one of those - is that no matter what one writes about, there is always someone who believes we should have written about something else, or written it differently. But this issue is not about Apple; it is about the editorial process itself. Every day, my colleagues and I on the technology section spend time questioning ourselves about the legitimacy of any story.

 

All serious journalists ask that question, each and every day. Sometimes that debate about legitimacy lasts a micro-second, sometimes it lasts a lot longer.

 

We are juggling finite resources covering a subject area with almost infinite scope and complexity. Sometimes I am asked why we haven't written about Subject A, and why we have written about Subject B. The answer most of the time is that we did not have enough resources to write about A and felt B was a more relevant story to the majority of our readers. A backlash from any quarter never enters into the discussion.