The Leica M8: Ethical Crisis in the Photographic Press (Corruption comes in many forms, from the intellectual to the monetary. I was reminded of this and disabused of my illusions about the existence of an impartial, high-end photographic press as I’ve researched the newly released Leica M8, which I…)

November 28, 2006 7:03 PM

Corruption comes in many forms, from the intellectual to the monetary.
I was reminded of this and disabused of my illusions about the existence of an impartial, high-end photographic press as I’ve researched the newly released Leica M8, which I still — as of this moment — plan to buy.
One is used to the notion that the specialty computer and camera and stereo and car and other industry magazines whore for the biggest brands, but I’d expected, or hoped, however naively, that some of the better photographic websites would be different.
Suffice to say the list of who I feel I can read with trust has substantially dwindled in recent days. One site that I liked, and indeed still like for qualities other than product reviews, fell off the short trustworthy list when they belatedly acknolwedged that they knew about some of the major problems that Leica’s new product has suffered, but they submitted their review to Leica and were asked not to mention the problems because they were about to be fixed.
I wrote to the operator of that site directly to express my shock at the practice of submitting a product review for review by the manufacturer prior to publication and was told politely that this is standard practice and that it’s done to protect against… errors.
Nevermind about protecting the potential buyer from surprise or disappointment or equipment failure with an expensive piece of new gear.
Readers of the site in question were given a rather less polite response, “vocal observers” (read critics of the design flaws and quality control problems in the $5000 Leica) were chastised and readers told that the Leica issues were a “tempest in a teapot.”

A quick writeup of the Leica issue and the controversy surrounding can be found at the link below:

http://www.auspiciousdragon.net/photowords/?p=162

Read "The Leica M8: Ethical Crisis in the Photographic Press"

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