Stop the Presses ⇥ counternotions.com

Kontra:

Yes, we have ever growing access to filtering software to shape our own sphere of coverage, and yet tens of millions of people read, and likely most believed, that Apple had deliberately and secretly deleted competitors’ songs from users’ iPods, an impression which may never be sufficiently corrected. Yes, we’re getting better tools to find and check facts, and yet the incentives to not deceive readers through disingenuous headlining and packaging are clearly not in place. How many headline corrections have you seen in this case?

Not a single one. While most headlines stated that “Apple deleted non-iTunes music from iPods”, or something to that effect, Mike Beasley of 9to5Mac took his headline even further:

Apple admits it deleted songs purchased through competing stores from iPods without warning

Bold. And not just my formatting.

It’s funny, because later in Beasley’s re-reporting, he makes the opposite case:

Apple’s lawyers stress that while such security measures did exist, the plaintiffs have yet to produce a single case of music being lost.

C’est la clickbait.