Does anyone know what the heck is up with Forbes?
You may wonder what the Macalope’s talking about. Why, Forbes is the noted national periodical, Mr. Macalope, that uncovered Stephen Glass’s journalist fraud back in the late 1990s. Forbes is, according to Forbes, “among the most trusted resources for senior business executives, providing them the real-time reporting, uncompromising commentary, concise analysis, relevant tools and community they need to succeed at work, profit from investing and have fun with the rewards of winning.” Whatever could you be talking about?
Yeaaaah.
See, it was one thing when Forbes published Kyle Smith’s paean to the Cult of “Apple is a Cult.” It was another when it let Kyle rehash his brilliant, never-before-seen “Apple = religion” argument while deriding Steve Jobs as someone who fostered a generation of self-absorbed hedonists.
And that’s just Smith.
Let’s now turn to Louis Bedigian, who called the iPhone 4S a “remarkably sucky, shoddy, sloppy, slapped together disaster of a phone.” Yes, he really wrote that. Two weeks later Bedigian tried to scare Forbes readers by suggesting they’ll get robbed if they buy an iPad 3.
This is the online equivalent of TV news teasers like “ARE PARASITES IN YOUR SOCKS LITERALLY EATING YOU ALIVE?”
But hang on! We’re not done listing Forbes‘s many atrocities against common sense and decency!
You know it’s bad at Forbes when the most reasonable writer it’s added to its bullpen of jerkery is repeated Apple-basher David Coursey. Coursey’s posts—from Steve Jobs Was A Jerk, You Shouldn’t Be to Cancer: ‘Think Different’ May Have Killed Steve Jobs—seem downright sensible after reading Smith and Bedigian.
Each and every one of these bon mots is split into two pages because they’re just so good that they warrant twice the number of ad impressions.
But the Macalope hasn’t even told you the best part. Because what’s the crowning jewel of Forbes’s commitment to Apple trollery, the cherry on top of this sundae of the damned?
Rob Enderle.
That’s right. No, the Macalope is not kidding. Our old pal Rob now contributes to Forbes and is even allowed to write about Apple, despite the fact that his client list reads almost verbatim like a list of Apple’s competitors. A fact which the Macalope notes is nowhere to be found on Rob’s contributor profile. Maybe Forbes’s executive readers just assume that everyone is as compromised as they are.
Forbes may have had a change of heart on Rob, as his most recent column for the publication, titled “Steve Jobs’ Post Mortem Advice For Google, Microsoft and President Obama,” seems to have been pulled. You can see the Google cache here, and it’s hard to say whether it was the impropriety of Rob talking about Apple or the horrible grammatical errors throughout the piece that convinced Forbes to pull it. The Macalope emailed Forbes for clarification over the weekend but hasn’t heard back.
Whatever the case, enjoy today’s links, Forbes! Because they’re the last the Macalope’s giving you.
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]