(Photo: Violet Blue)
See here. Valleywag, the gold standard for ethics, honesty and responsible behavior in the Valley, is blasting Apple uber-flack Katie Cotton (in photo above), saying she’s putting Steve Jobs’s needs ahead of the needs of Apple and its shareholders by not being forthright about Steve’s health. Money quote: “Cotton should remember this: She doesn’t actually work for Steve Jobs. She works for Apple’s shareholders. If it’s too late for her to start doing her job accordingly, then it’s time for her to go.”
But Katie is no doubt working furiously behind the scenes. For example I’d bet she had something to do with this story by John Markoff from the New York Times where “people who are close to Mr. Jobs” leaked that Jobs had surgery earlier this year and has had some side effects from that but otherwise is fine and cancer-free. (Note that it’s “people who are close to Mr. Jobs” saying this and not Apple itself, meaning there’s no accountability for Apple PR afterward should the whole thing later turn out to be only partially true. Note also that “people close to Mr. Jobs” do not speak to reporters without permission, ever.)
Which means what? Markoff is a great guy and knows tech better than almost any other reporter on the beat, but he’s also one of the reporters Apple views as friendly and trustworthy, which in the Valley means he can be counted on to play ball. Make of that what you will but there’s a reason this story leaked out in the Times and under Markoff’s byline, and it isn’t because he’s such a dogged, hard-nosed investigative reporter who’s breaking down doors to get at the truth. Ahem.
The guys doing that are the guys at the Journal. They must be going nuts trying to break this story. And they’re in league with those hedge fund guys whom they quoted anonymously earlier in the week, the ones who are considering hiring private detectives to trail Jobs.
You think it’s a coincidence that just as the Journal was breaking its story about hedge funds hiring private detectives, Markoff at the Times happened to run into some “people close to Mr. Jobs” who knew about Steve’s surgery and were willing to tell John Markoff all about it? Right. None of this is happening by accident. Apple PR is playing the Valley press corps, and the Valley press corps is going along with it, like they always do. Not so the hedge fund guys, who have real money at stake and don’t care if someone like Katie Cotton yells at them. Frankly I’d be shocked if the hedge fund guys didn’t already have people posted 24×7 at the Stanford Medical Center.
For what it’s worth, Markoff may be one of the only hacks left that Apple PR can count on. A couple of the guys at Fortune used to be considered friendly until their colleague Peter Elkind produced a botched hatchet job on Steve Jobs earlier this year. It’s likely that Apple has now gone dark on everyone at Fortune as a result. Goatberg is friendly to Apple but he’s a gadget guy and doesn’t do news, and anyway the Journal went after Jobs on options backdating so they’re likely on the Katie Cotton shit list too. Forbes? Um, right. Even before I created Fake Steve, Apple wouldn’t let anyone at Forbes do any interviews with anyone at Apple. We had a whole bureau in the Valley, 30 miles from Cupertino, and for ten years we didn’t set foot inside Apple. They’d send us review units and that’s it.
So Apple is down to one last friend in the Valley press corps — John Markoff at the Times – and he gets the “scoop” about the surgery. Funny old world isn’t it.