Apple tries to halt Steve Jobs newspaper article

Sometimes I think Apple would make a great fit for the repressive government described by George Orwell in his novel 1984. Another week, another attempt of Apple’s marketing machine to control to flow of opinion about the company and its bright star Steve Jobs. We hear that Apple tried to block the Sunday Times from the publication of a lengthy article trying to provide a profile of Jobs.

The article focuses on not so glamorous background information and events, describes complaints from employees about Apple secrecy, Job’s upbringing, education, love life and control freak nature and, and - yes you guessed it – health concerns. Author Bryan Appleyard was told that Apple discourages journalists to create profiles of Steve Jobs. Well, and PR staff was apparently told to ask the author not to publish the article. You know what happens when you ask a journalist not to publish an article.

Oh well.

Apple never figured out how to work with journalists other than Walt Mossberg and probably never will.