There's no pleasing some fans

(Alex Eben Meyer/The New York Times)

In his new book "True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society," Farhad Manjoo, a writer for Salon, argues that "new communications technologies are loosening the culture's grip on what people once called 'objective reality.' "

In an excerpt posted this week, he looks at an area where facts often become particularly slippery, specifically perceived bias in the news media against, of all things, a technology company - Apple (machinist.salon.com).

"Last year," Manjoo writes, "I praised the iPhone in something of the way Romeo once praised Juliet: The device, I said, is revolutionary - 'it marks a new way of life. One day we'll all have iPhones, or things that aim to do what this first one does, and your life will be better for it.' "

But because he mentioned that the phone was a bit pricey, "several readers alleged that I was an Apple-hater." One wrote him to ask, "Does Salon actually pay you or are you being paid under the table by rival companies?"

Anybody who has ever written about Apple products will tell the same story - introducing even a hint of negativity into a review or article will bring down the wrath of Apple's most fanatical fans.

What explains this? Manjoo cites a study by Robert P. Vallone, Lee Ross and Mark R. Lepper, psychologists at Stanford University, (ssc.wisc.edu/~jpiliavi/965/hwang.pdf) in 1985. That study measured perceptions of media bias relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. People who held strong opinions on the conflict going in were more apt to perceive bias in news accounts. Pro-Palestinian subjects saw a pro-Israel bias, and vice versa.

When "a reporter, editor, news network, or pundit mentions the other side's arguments, it stings," Manjoo writes. "Psychologists call this the 'hostile media phenomenon,' and it goes far in explaining how both Apple and PC folks can see the opposite bias in the same news story."

But the phenomenon is particularly stark when it comes to opinionated reviews - however laudatory - of Apple products. That's because many Apple fans "care little for honest opinion," Manjoo writes. "They want to pick up the paper and see in it a reflection of their own nearly religious zeal for the thing they love. They don't want a review. They want a hagiography."

CUSTOMERS' DISSERVICE: It may seem counterintuitive to argue that it may be better sometimes for business owners to worry more about their business than about a particular customer. But Alexander Kjerulf, a business consultant argues just that on his website Chief Happiness Officer (positivesharing.com).

Believing that "the customer is always right" is just plain wrong, he writes. He lists five reasons, with examples, to avoid spending too much time and money to make a troublesome customer happy. Some customers are simply better for business than others, he says. And it's unfair that "abusive people get better treatment and conditions than nice people."

TV WATCHES YOU: Gerard Kunkel, the senior vice president for user experience at Comcast, told Chris Albrecht of NewTeeVee that Comcast is experimenting with camera technologies that would let it know who is watching television. By recognizing body forms, for example, a set-top box would make recommendations to individual viewers (newteevee.com). It could also present tailored advertisements.

"Perhaps I've seen 'Enemy of the State' too many times, or perhaps I'm just naive about the depths to which Comcast currently tracks my every move," Albrecht wrote. So "why should I trust them with my must-be-kept-secret, DVR-clogging addiction to 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians?' "

Dan Mitchell writes for The New York Times.