Response to yesterday's post

Summary: A noteworthy message we've received from someone who knows Microsoft from the inside

Microsoft's marketing and sales budget is bigger than their R&D. Ad revenue fueled media outlets actively seek out entities with budgets such as this and will naturally shill for such entities while tending to avoid their ire by adhering to embargoes, letting them slip in sponsored content, not publishing negative press, and such. If they play ball, then they get privileged access and such. So yes, ZDNet is owned by Microsoft (and others) in some senses.

Media outlet gets a shit ton of ad-revenue. Company makes a fortune with an image bolstered by biased news that plays to the favor of companies with huge ad budgets in return. People and companies stand to make so much money off of an inflated and unrealistic image that there are 6 PR people for every journalist. And the disparity is probably 20:1 when you separate the real journalists from the shill journalists. ⬆