On April 18, The Seattle Times ran a front-page story titled "Survey says: Let Gates run the U.S." Apparently, a new study shows that Americans want Bill Gates to run the White House. The problem is (besides the unsettling thought of Gates running the country), the Times only gave readers half the picture about the study--the half that was favorable to Microsoft.
The study, commissioned by New York public relations firm Brouillard Communications, randomly asked 1,000 people what company they would trust to run the U.S. government if it were a business. (According to Brouillard, Microsoft is not one of its clients.) However, the study also asked what people thought about certain companies like Microsoft and General Motors, and who their favorite CEOs were. Brouillard's study came up with some interesting results that the Times didn't mention.
If the Times had reported all the study's findings, readers would have learned that people thought Microsoft was a greedy company, a monopoly, and finally, that Gates has a personality problem. The study also cited Microsoft's antitrust problems as a major factor in shaping public opinion, and even compared the software giant to Bill Clinton. "The antitrust case is to Microsoft what the Monica Lewinsky scandal was to Bill Clinton," the study reported. Furthermore, 43 percent of the people in the study had negative impressions of Microsoft.
Why did the Times omit results that were critical of Microsoft? We're not sure. The Stranger asked the Times, but unfortunately Times front-page editor Scott Barry would not comment.
The article in question was a reprint of an April 17 story by Associated Press (AP) reporter Lisi de Bourbon. According to Bourbon, the article came from her "not too serious" weekly collection of gossipy news tidbits for the AP. "It was kind of a lighthearted fun thing, and not to be taken that serious at all," Bourbon told The Stranger. "If I included the negative results of the study, I would have had to call Microsoft for a comment," she said. "There just wasn't enough space for that." Using gossipy fluff for news blurbs is one thing, but to make Bourbon's underreported clip into a front-page news story without additional legwork is tantamount to free advertising.
Running a favorable front-page piece about Microsoft under a glowing headline is equivalent to putting the software giant's Windows logo on every Times news box for a day. With the current antitrust case pending, the Redmond software giant sure could use this kind of help. The Times won't talk to The Stranger about the story, but the paper will talk to regular readers, so call 464-2200 and ask about it yourself.
