Yes, Microsoft is the Problem
Lately we wrote a great deal about The Register (search results above, our site search isn't public yet, but it will be). Yesterday we got contacted by The Register.
One writer said, "I am no MS shill."
I agree. He is not.
We never said all of them are. But some are. "Lately," I had explained, "the publication hired Microsoft voices, and that includes two editors. That worries me not because of the background but due to recent output."
The response I got was sarcastic: "Yeah, no." It also said: "MS is big in corporate computing. Lots of magazines only write about it. My start in this business was PC Pro magazine, still going -- I was at the 30th anniversary last year -- and it rose from the ashes of Windows Magazine to which I had a corporate sub."
But this describes the actual problem. We don't disagree that this is happening. It's just that we want to do something about it. Microsoft bribes and bribed so much of the media that now we're led to think that it's inevitable and "the normal". It ought not be so. █
"Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!"
--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]