The Sad State of Italian Apple News

My friends at The Apple Lounge, an Italian weblog about Apple news, published a fake story about Apple acquiring Starbucks on April 1st. Clearly meant to be a hoax – they even linked to Wikipedia’s “Pesce d'Aprile” (April Fool’s) webpage in the via footer – the story gained some traction and, unsurprisingly, some Italian blogs and publications ran with it.

Here comes the comically tragic part. Not only did some renowned outlets like Il Sole 24 Ore run with it, they also didn’t credit The Apple Lounge’s fake story as if the rumor came out of nowhere on April Fool’s. The list of worst offenders includes Leggo.it and AffariItaliani (I’m not giving them pageviews, but make sure to hit The Apple Lounge’s documented series of screenshots and links).

The Italian Apple news scene is in a coma. There are too few good guys, and they are easily forgotten because people prefer to get their news from the deathbed of old media. I have seen enough of other countries’ Apple coverage to know that, even with their stupid rumors, at least most outlest do some basic homework. Not so in Italy. We are full of non-credited, misquoted, poorly written articles about Apple. The “good guys” – passionate writers who care about the opposite values, such as crediting, quoting, and quality reporting – don’t get the traffic they deserve, or they choose to write in another language entirely because it’s not worth it. Or, they quit.

The Starbucks story is yet another example of the sad state of Apple news in Italy. My advice to readers is, of course, to change their reading habits and pick carefully the blogs they want to read.

To Apple: I understand that you care about exposure when you invite “old media” to your press events, but you should take a look at their writing during the rest of the year. Seriously, look at it. Close. Read their articles on your new Retina displays.

To old media: grow a pair. And while you’re at it, learn to credit your sources.