Another Computer Glitch

The air was blue in my office a second ago. I’ll spare you the vulgarities. I just read that the whole SNL-Simpson fiasco is being blamed on that 21st century public relations scapegoat, a computer glitch.

This pisses me off because it’s usually an outright lie, and it trades on the public’s apparent ignorance about computers. I’ve already mentioned Ms. Simpson two mores times than she deserves, so let me refer you to another recent example. You’ll recall that the Royal Bank screwed up and caused payroll delays for thousands of Canadian workers this summer? They, of course, blamed the ubiquitous computer glitch.

Blaming the computer is a bit like blaming God or the Devil or fate. It seems to imply that the company is simply the victim of bad luck, and not at fault for the incident. “Ah well, those pesky computers, what’re you going to do?” In truth, the computer is almost never to blame. It’s usually either operator error at runtime or bad programming by a human.

For any journalists reading this entry, next time a company blames something on a computer glitch, I encourage you to ask probing questions about the nature of the incident. Well, I’m not sweating Ashlee Simpson, but in cases where something actually matters, please ask the right questions.