Phillip Swann is president and publisher of TVPredictions.com. He has been quoted in dozens of publications and broadcast outlets, including CNN, Fox News, Inside Edition, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Financial Times, The Associated Press and The Hollywood Reporter. He can be reached at swann@tvpredictions.com or at 703-505-3064.
Click TVPredictions.com to read more news and features on TV technology.
_______________________________________________________________________________
CNN/Money's misleading headline and article says two things:
1. The publication is too quick to pronounce an industry trend as a fait accompli, a weakness of many journalists who don't cover that industry very closely.
2. The publication is too quick to label a research firm's prediction as fact. In this case, iSuppli's forecast that online would surpass discs in 2012 was stamped with a headline saying it had already happened.
The second item is the one of greatest concern here. Research firms issues forecasts every day; some are good and some aren't.
And, some are biased.
That's right. Research groups sometimes issue studies with conclusions that will benefit them financially or politically. That's why journalists need to view them with skepticism rather than blindly accepting their conclusions. Failure to do so gives the research group a free ticket to spread whatever propaganda it would like. And if that propaganda is allowed to spread far enough, it starts to become a reality in people's minds. (After CNN/Money posted its incorrect headline on Twitter yesterday, some journalists immediately retweeted it without questioning its veracity; that's one easy way to spread propaganda.)
I'm not saying that iSuppli in particular is biased here. But CNN/Money is guilty of not questioning the study's forecasts and conclusions.
What do you think? Offer your comments below!