Some journalists have tried to conjure up "professional standards" that aren't binding, but the fact that they are not binding is why it's not a profession and why those "standards" are just suggestions. Unfortunately, the accumulated cruft of decades of wrongly decided cases grants this pseudo-profession many special rights and no formal duties to counterbalance those.
> it would not be be difficult to get clear evidence of this directive from NYT leadership
Yes, it would be difficult. Do you think the publisher or managing editor is going to admit to it?
A reporter in a position to know is a great source. The news business runs on "a source close to... said" and "a high-placed source said..."
If what the source said seems to contradict other evidence, that's a different matter.
It's legitimate news that some parents do it. It's business news that Apple's trying to make it kid-friendly.
The article doesn't extoll the virtues of giving a smartwatch to your kids. I guess you wanted them to trash the whole idea? They do say in the first paragraph, "The smart watch cost $279, and he worried that its recipient would immediately break or lose it."
At the very least, it's not negative coverage of Apple. Even if you think it neutral coverage (I don't), it's a counter-example to the supposed directive that all tech coverage have a negative tone. And they categorized it as tech news, not business news.
A balanced article would have found some parents who all said, "Hell, no, I'm not buying that for him. He'll lose it inside of a month." There are probably a lot of such parents.
As for "singing praises of that product" -- I think that is totally legitimate. It IS a product that does a lot of stuff and some people might like it for that. Do you expect them to invent some faults with it?
I'd also expect a real journalist to get some numbers on their sales, not just find one user who likes it.
(On the other hand, Walt Mossberg would have tried it for a week and given it a grade, idk what.)
This question can be easily answered with a search for NYTimes and green energy in tech or when Elon initially helped Ukraine using Starlink or any of the multitude of articles on advances in robotics or how new advances in computing help solve problems in healthcare.
How much proof would you be able to find for that? Do you insist an owner speak on the record? "Photographs or it didn't happen"?
So you ask for evidence, and attempt to correlate it.
For the former, some shop owner has to risk his life testifying, or the cops have to have recordings. A newspaper does not and cannot hold to this standard.
That can mean not making judgement based on things which are generally true in cases where it can damage another's reputation or result in the internet mob descending on them.
Or maybe we just run every NYT tech story for the past 24 months through a sentiment analysis
I wish this exact same method of sourcing wasn't the basis for 95% of journalism these days.