Wednesday, February 2, 2011

The Daily v. NYTimes for iPad

Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily, “the first digital news publication with original content created every day exclusively for the iPad,” is rated “9+,” for “Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence.” I assume that such violence is to be found in The Daily’s Apps & Games section. In contrast, NYTimes for iPad is rated “12+,” for “Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes, Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content or Nudity, Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence, Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References.”

It’d be nice to read news in which violence, whether cartoonish or “realistic,” is infrequent and mild. But that’d be the news from nowhere. Who at Apple decided that it would make sense to describe the content of the news in these terms? And why the three-year age difference between these two sources?

[The Gossip section of The Daily must be pretty tame stuff — no Suggestive Themes, none at all?]

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