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To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (18468)	4/15/1998 2:41:00 AM
From: Charles Hughes	Respond to of 24154

>>>Dave Whittle, the ex-IBMer who founded team OS/2, once told me of alleged buy-offs of opinion makers. I thought he was nuts for thinking such a thing.<<< How can a trade writer be so naive? Music industry pubs have been payola influenced as often as not. Car & Driver or Road & Track , I forget which, was successfully sued for selling their 'Car of the Year' prize for years. 60 minutes will slobber all over some writer or product for half an hour - if they sell through CBS Records & Books (Actually, I think they sold that division??) TV shows including the local news are full of product shows and product stories. Why would the computer press be any different? Actually, it is better than most fields - but only lately. I've written for trade pubs and business papers occasionally (a long long time ago now, most of it), and I was frequently bemused by the fact that many of these 'journalists' just think this is business as usual. The attitude is that if you aren't working for a 'real newspaper' it doesn't matter and it isn't selling out. I sent away for the writers guidelines for a couple of PC rags in the 80's and they actually made this attitude quite plain in the guidelines - they didn't even want you to apply unless you would write what they were being paid to print, with a very perky positive spin. At least on the Internet some of the people writing are telling you what they really think, painful or not. Some of the posters are just PR hacks, of course, but the truth has a way of outing in this format, most of the time. Cheers, Chaz