Paper Monitor
13:31 UK time, Thursday, 27 May 2010
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Here's a conundrum that would keep students of journalism ethics chewing on their Biros for a good while. How do you report the iPad (other handheld tablet computer devices exist) without being seen to be giving shed loads of free publicity to Apple?
On one level, the release of Apple's tablet computer in the UK is a genuine news story - Apple is a big player in the consumer electronics field and its technology has a history of determining how we consume culture.
On another, it's all a bit of a puff.
So the challenge is for the press to find a different way into the story - one which acknowledges the release of the iPad, yet does something more with it.
Paper Monitor has established its own iPad (incidental Publicity AccorDed) index on which to rate them.
The Guardian yesterday had artist David Hockney showing off his iPad-enabled art. But when Paper Monitor scratched further, it felt a bit more like an Apple love-in with the likes of Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry explaining how they use their iPads and why they love them so.
iPad: 8/10
Apple's PR team will be less enamoured of the Independent's take - a report on the "inhumane" treatment of workers at the iPad factory in China. It says there have been 11 suicide attempts at the factory - although it also makes products for other electronics firms.
iPad: 1/10
The Daily Telegraph couches its story as a straight-forward review. "For web browsing there is no better device... [I]f you're interested in books, the iPad offers a wider range of options than any dedicated e-reader..." etc. But just when it looks like Apple's UK public relations team will be hitting the wine bar for an expenses-paid Champagne lunch, there's a "Why I won't be buying an iPad" piece to balance it all out.
iPad: 7/10
The Daily Express enlists a technology writer to road-test the device... on his grandfather, who can't use a computer but gets on well with the tablet computer.
iPad: 5/10
Finally, a certain service highlighting the riches of the daily press has assessed all the articles assessing the iPad and coined a rating system which is an acronymically identical to the name of the device itself.
iPad: TBC
The 
