Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!ncsuvx!news From: kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Reality check: Amiga coverage is not a right, but a privilege Message-ID: <1990Dec17.095310.8040@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> Date: 17 Dec 90 09:53:10 GMT References: <1990Dec17.034643.7021@maytag.waterloo.edu> <1990Dec17.055249.7684@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Sender: news@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (USENET News System) Organization: NCSU Computing Center Lines: 56 In article <1990Dec17.034643.7021@maytag.waterloo.edu> giguere@csg.uwaterloo.ca (Eric Giguere) writes: > Well, I'll tell you something: a lot of writers know about the Amiga, but > a lot of them avoid the machine because of the users they encounter. Until > Amiga owners stop whining and threatening them, you won't see much more > coverage. No writers, no coverage. Simple as that. Truth. Editors of two major non-IBM-specific magazines have told me that they cringe whenever they print *anything* on the Amiga, because they know that they'll get tons of nasty letters telling them their "mistakes". So it's simply much easier for them to NOT print anything on the Amiga. No, let me rephrase that: They cease to have any desire to do so...exactly as people here hate to read lots of flame wars. Editors are people, too. (Especially if the letter starts: "I don't buy your stupid mag, but...":) And in <1990Dec17.055249.7684@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> md41@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Marcus Dolengo) writes: > I read the article on the A3000UX in Byte and noticed the authors 1st > paragraph said something to the effect "old beliefs die hard" and his > were "the amiga isnt a serious machine" etc. [...] I'm sure he echoed the thoughts of his readers about the name "Commodore". By admitting his previous beliefs, he lent much more credence to his new. > Magazines that pretend to be a magazine of "the industry" [.... have] > 1: ignored a large user base But not a large subscriber set. Most Amigans tend to not subscribe to BYTE. In a Catch-22 way, this means it won't get covered as much. > 2: possibly lied to their readers by stating things that "cant be done" but > are being done by amigas.... etc. etc. etc. > 3: little journalistic integrity for doing the above, and its readership > should know this. Agreed! But you'd be surprised that most of those same magazines are always looking for articles by those who _do_ know. Yet they get no submissions. Another point: remember the BYTE article last year (or so) which had that awful Amiga picture? Funny thing is, the Mac and PC people also complained about the photos of THEIR screens, also. People need to take one giant step back, and view articles with blinders off. > One way to do this is to write them letters. Exactly. Praise them for covering things that you like. Factually and calmly correct misinformation (you'll notice that those letters get printed quite often). Write an article if you can (if you can't, then perhaps you know less than you thought? ;-). Magazines go with what's easiest to cover... and that means topics with lots of submissions, review hardware, and easy-to-please readership. The real world is not automagically fair. It takes work and help. best - kev