The Joy of Shilling

tin:

The website is hosted on a MS owned network, isn't it?
And MS usually have a pretty big ad in the printed magazine.
Surely these are funding a slice of your work, which in turn will make your opinion slightly slanty.

This article was a good laugh though.

APC administrator:

Thanks Tin for your comments, because they highlight some common misconceptions about APC.

The website is hosted on a MS owned network, isn't it?

No. The site is hosted by Internode, as the tile at the bottom of our left sidebar indicates, on a server graciously donated by Sun Microsystems. NineMSN sells advertising on our site, and we are required contractually to run their branding.

They have no access to our CMS, our FTP server or any other part of our infrastructure, and have no editorial input into our news coverage. I don't expect people to accept that as fact on my word (I'm just another shill after all), but it's the truth.

And MS usually have a pretty big ad in the printed magazine.

Which they purchase through our advertising department after we have completed the editorial work for the month, just like any other advertiser. Seriously, the media is financed by advertising. If you want to argue against that, fair enough, but you can't just defame a respectable publication with an accusation of bias simply by pointing out who advertises with them.

Surely these are funding a slice of your work, which in turn will make your opinion slightly slanty.

Tin my friend; have you read any of my work? If my opinion is slanty in any way, it's slanty in such a way as to be biased in favour of Linux, not Windows or Microsoft. Honestly, the mere idea that I personally am in any way pro-Microsoft is genuinely hilarious.

I freaking hate Windows with a level of irrational vitriol usually reserved for Russell Crowe's band.

This article was a good laugh though.

Well thanks for that too! I certainly enjoyed writing it at least as much as you enjoyed reading it.

tin:

I have probably read your work, but I pay little attention to who writes anything, so I wouldn't know.

As for ads, Im sure in some people's minds there, the fact that MS is a large advertiser does play into their efforts. It certainly does in other.

And I just noticed the internode logo... It's nowhere near as obvious as the MSN bar and ads at the top. It did used to be part of the MSN network didn't it? I seem to remember APC being a "category" on the NineMSN site.

Dan Warne:

Ironically, APC has always been among the strongest magazines in Australia for coverage of open-source and Linux, and as a result we've rarely had Microsoft advertising in the past. They're starting to place ads in APC now, but I think that's more a natural consequence of the fact that they are about to relaunch all their most important products in major new versions after years of disastrous stagnation, and they are embarking on an absolutely unbridled marketing frenzy that will be coming at you from all sides. 

As far as I know, APCMag.com has never been hosted with NineMSN or used NineMSN's content management system. They obviously give the site promotion across the various NineMSN sites, since we belong to their network in a branding sense, but we've never been directly 'in' NineMSN if that makes sense. 

It's actually a real testament to NineMSN that they have been so respectful of our need for clear editorial independence given Microsoft's involvement in the joint venture.

They have never once tried to influence anything we write, and even though we are legally a part of their portfolio of sites, when they are hopeful of publicity for something, they send their PR agency people along to do a presentation to us in the same way they would to any other publication.

I don't blame readers for noting the NineMSN branding and making the assumption that we must be 'owned' by them and therefore our editorial content might be influenced by Microsoft, but it's simply not the case. If you actually read the assortment of views we publish on the site, it's also fairly obvious that Microsoft wouldn't be reprinting most of them in the staff newsletter!

And finally, bear in mind that NineMSN is not Microsoft -- it's a joint venture between PBL and Microsoft. So it's a legally separate company, and amazingly enough, if Microsoft wants to advertise on APCMag.com, they have to buy ads from NineMSN! (Obviously some of that money ends up back in their coffers anyway, but equally, some of it goes to PBL... as PBL is certainly not in the business of giving away free advertising!) 

APC administrator:

I have probably read your work, but I pay little attention to who writes anything, so I wouldn't know.

Ouch! My fragile e-peen didn't need that!

With regards the rest of your comment, I think that Dan summed it up swimmingly. As I said to bdude above, by all means question everything that you learn from mass media, but judge the coverage fairly, and as a whole.

If we have one story saying that Microsoft has done a good thing, it should be judged against all of the other content on the site which says the very opposite, and vice versa.

bdude:

I agree, feel free to have concerns about editorial content across all media, newspaper, tv, radio and magazine. However do not assume you are right.

APC administrator:

I couldn't agree more. These days you would be crazy to interpret anything that you learn from mass media as the truth without questioning it.

The reality is that the media is owned by large corporate interests, who have partners and subsidiaries of all shapes and sizes. That makes it really hard to work out whoyou can trust.

All that I ask of readers here is that they judge us on our coverage, not on the advertising. After all, that's really the best that you can do in this day and age.