The Empire Strikes Back: Rogers Responds (And The Media Plays Right Along)

A story by Vito Pilieci in this morning's Ottawa Citizen (and possibly in many other CanWest newspapers across Canada) claims that Rogers' iPhone stock is the same as it always was for tomorrow's launch, and he all but accuses yours truly of flat out lying in my original post. A hat tip to Jon Newton of P2PNet for bringing the story to my attention early this morning, and for responding in my defence here.

You can read the online version of the story here, and read Pilieci's blog post about it here. (It's the top story there for now, although his blog provides no way to link to a specific article, so that link may not be so useful later.)

To begin, let me just say that this "news" piece is remarkably regurgitated and voiceless for a story that appeared in a major media publication. I also find its tone to be incredibly condescending.

Pilieci's blog entry is even worse, but then blogs aren't held to the same standards as the MSM. In any case, I'll come back to these points. First, the Rogers statement and my thoughts.

The Empire Strikes Back

The article quotes a Rogers rep (Senior VP and Chief Marketing Officer John Boynton), who says:

Despite popular rumour mongering, which is always a popular sport on the Internet, we have more than enough inventory. In fact, we are getting our inventory plus some.

My initial reaction to Boynton's comments are that one of 3 things could have happened here: 

1) False Information

The information that Rogers gave to their own dealer principals last week, which clearly stated that initial inventories would be reduced and prompted some dealerships to lay off extra help... was...um... false.

Don't believe people were let go? Then take a read through the following email. It was sent to me directly just now by an ex-employee who read about this story on CBC.ca and wishes to remain anonymous for now:

Dear XXXX,

We regret to inform you that due to circumstances beyond our control,

we unfortunately will not be requiring extra staffing for the summer

and therefore your employment opportunity with Rogers must be

rescinded.  We appreciate your time and effort during the interview

process and the training that you may have attended.  We regret any

inconvenience that this may have caused.

As you attended in class training, you will be compensated for your

time.   As of 07/11/08, you can pick up your cheque at our XXXXXXXX

location.  At this time, we require that you return your copy

of the employment agreement when you pick up your check.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail.

Again, we truly appreciate your time and enthusiasm towards working at

a Rogers store this summer.  We will keep your resume on file in the

case a future opportunity arises.

We wish you a safe and happy summer.

A happy summer indeed. Needless to say, this option seems unlikely.

2) Ignorance is Bliss

It is possible that the inventory was depleted, but since no one but Rogers and Apple know what the original expected number was in the first place, there is no way we could know...so why should Rogers admit as much?

Furthermore, the "launch parties" planned for major urban Rogers Plus stores tomorrow (with breakfast even!) will probably have access to the bulk of the unit stocks, and this stunt could be used to obfuscate the significance of any shortages elsewhere. 

And shortages elsewhere I'm sure there will be. 

My source's response to the Citizen article and its claims was this:

Well some stores are now getting only 15 phones, so obviously Rogers is lying about getting "our inventory plus some."

My source is expecting a surge of business at their store between 9am and 10am, at which point they expect to be out of units. If a stock that small was "the plan", I daresay it wasn't a particularly good one.

3) Unlikely Scandal

The third and least likely possibility is that Rogers has indeed received "inventory plus some" from Apple as a last minute arrangement, perhaps arising from Rogers'caving and offering a 6GB (basically unlimited data) plan. 

This is highly unlikely, given the fact that it would have involved Apple hoarding stock and releasing it contingent on pricing demands. However, there is the question of why Rogers waited until today to make this official announcement, if their stock was truly unchanged throughout this week.

My So-Called Retraction

Anyway, as I clearly said in my original post, we may never know what truly went on behind the scenes this week, and that remains as true as ever.

Oh, and speaking of things I clearly said in my original post, here's another for you: "I am going to post a very plausible rumour that has caught my ear..."

That was in the opening paragraph of my original article. Or if that was too difficult to read for Mr. Pilieci, he might have caught the words "Plausible Rumour" in my article title.

But no matter, that didn't stop him from claiming in his print story that I "have been reporting on the relationship between Apple and Rogers, stating that Rogers' cellular data pricing is too high and that Apple is not happy about them" and that I have "since retracted most of [my] story, now referring to it as a "plausible rumour." 

Interesting time-line, Vito. 

That's some stand up investigative reporting.

Voiceless Regurgitation

But wait, no investigative reporting was really involved here, was it? The entire story reads like a Rogers Press release, and quite frankly, I can't believe the Citizen let it go to print like that.

Apparently, Pilieci's idea of a neutral second source is the president of a Toronto PR firm.  

"This is a case where the people who scream the loudest get the most attention," Carmi Levy of AR Communications was quoted as saying in the piece.

Well, not really. If that were true, then I would have been picking up my stories on this lowly blog from mainstream sources, and not the other way around.

Perhaps the reason my little rumour expose was so popular is because, even if it had not been true, it resonated with a deep-seated dissatisfaction among Canadians with their wireless pricing.

But I digress.  More to the point, where is the comment in Pilieci's article from someone closer to operations than a Marketing VP, like say, someone at store level who isn't being paid to make the company look good to the press? Where is a comment from anybody on the "other side" of the story for that matter? 

The Pot and the Kettle

The most ironic part of Piliesci's piece is its unbridled condescension towards bloggers and its inherent hypocrisy.

First he puts down blogs and bloggers in general, playing right along with Rogers' claims about internet "rumour-mongering." 

He then quotes this inflammatory statement from Levy: 

If you are a blogger, unlike a real journalist, you are not subjected to the same checks and balances of real media and you can pretty much say anything. Whether or not it is backed up by fact is almost irrelevant.

There is some truth is Levy's comment, to be sure. There is a lower standard imposed upon bloggers when it comes to knowing-for-sure before going "to print",  as it were. And in my opinion, that is part of the beauty of the medium. We wouldn't have ever known about Lewinski were it not for Matt Drudge, after all.

But to imply that that immediacy somehow makes the medium illegitimate or that bloggers are somehow less "real" than print journalists is just silly.

Those of us in the blogosphere who care about our readers are not going to make up stories for attention and throw our reputation under the bus.  That in itself is a check and a balance.

And what about the myriad prominent journalists who maintain their own blogs. Like... oh, I don't know... Piliesci himself!

Finally, the icing on the cake here is that just to clearly demonstrate the superiority of the print medium, he included this statement in a "real" journalistic piece that reads like little more than a re-written Rogers press release.

Canadian Consumers Are Just Confused

But the condescension doesn't end there. Not content to have only put down millions of online publishers, he turns his attention to Canadian consumers as well.

In what I can only assume is a party line directly from Rogers, Piliesci informs us that the reason for all this hulaballoo over data pricing is that "Canadians are confused about what it means to pay to download cellular data" and that "blogs and websites full of false reports are confusing customers further." 

Oh my gosh, I feel so foolish! Here I was thinking that we consumers were legitimately concerned about the amount of data we have been getting for our buck, especially compared to pricing in the US... when all the while the issue has been that we just don't understand how great our plans really are.

And then it's sites like this decidedly unjournalistic blog that are only muddying the waters even further.

Well, for that, Mr. Pilieci, I do apologize.