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THE TRADITIONAL PRESS in the Land of the Free is baying for the blood of Gizmodo for buying an Iphone prototype and writing it up as a news story.
Jeff Bercovici, bless his cotton socks, has even called for Apple to sue Gizmodo. "I am somewhat scandalized, even outraged. Put simply, Gawker Media brazenly, publicly flouted the law. It subsidized a crime: the selling of stolen merchandise. Then it published a misleading, whitewashed account of the seller's actions meant to make it look as though he was not acting with criminal intent. It published this account in order to disguise its own culpability in the matter," he wrote.
The general feeling about the story from the US press is that Gizmodo somehow did something wrong by publishing a news story providing information that people wanted. Most of the complaints appear to come from hacks who have been publishing unsubstantiated rumours about the Ipad for the last six months. In other words it is okay to publish rumours but it is not okay to actually use hard evidence.
At the core of the objections is the allegation that Gizmodo obtained the story by "cheque book journalism". In other words it bought the story and this somehow made it invalid.
It might be unusual for stories to be paid for in the IT industry, but some of the big names in media make no secret that they buy stories in other fields. Cheque book journalism is undesirable, but it is used and to deny that magazines and newspapers do it, in one form or another, is blatant posturing.
People who moan about that sort of thing are usually the types of people who can dismiss an accurate news story because of a typo or a split infinitive in the 24th paragraph.
In tabloid journalism it is common practice to "do a spoiler" on an article that is written by a rival, but some of these comments in the US press go beyond simple jealousy.
It comes down to something that is instilled in US hacks from the time they train. They might be biased, purple prose peddlers, but they somehow have a "moral code" and they are "respectable". They bang on about press ethics even as they are writing up a press release for some IT company that has its goods made in a Chinese sweatshop. But the illusion of moral superiority is more important than writing news or informing people.
This arrogant illusion places the press at the mercy of the press officers and government spin merchants. US hacks sell their souls for "access" to government sources and industry executives, and don't dare write anything unflattering or critical lest they stop getting invited to tame press briefings.
It also means that they follow "procedures" because getting news from other sources is somehow dirty. They seem to think it is better to write pages of uninformed guff from a press release than to try and find out what is really going on.
Apparently some of them also think it is better to call for companies or governments to sue hacks who step out of line and actually dare to print a story that is off the roadmap of PR releases and propaganda.
The Ipad hype shows just how far the so-called "moral press" that would have returned the Iphone without writing a story about it have been led up the garden path by their own so called ethics.
By doing things in a particular way many US technology hacks end up being the unpaid servants of the industry they are supposed to be reporting on. Apple appears to be a particular blind spot for the US press, such that negative news is only handled by the foreign press or blogs.
But it is not just Apple. I can remember once at a press conference asking why Microsoft was shafting network managers with its new licences only be tapped on the back by some fat Yank journalist who told me off for "being disrespectful to our Microsoft hosts".
From memory I told him that I was asking the questions that he should be (I am paraphrasing my actual words). I saw the same jerk again on a Youtube video standing up to applaud Steve Jobs at a press conference, so I guess that fawning creepiness is considered "being respectful".
It takes a lot more than a free drink and a cheese nibble before I will ask Steve Ballmer what he does to relax.
A while back I got a call from former colleague who said he was working in the land of the free and making a killing. He said that UK journalists were highly prized in the US because they were fast and tended to get stories. It looks like Gizmodo's crime was to learn that lesson and get the news by whatever means it could.
As to the US hacks who rounded on the magazine: shut up and write some proper news. µ
The person who found the phone hardly made an honest attempt to return it. I blogged about this here, if anyone's interested. Be forewarned, it's quite lengthy.
http://accfed.blogtownhall.com/2010/04/30/apples_too_big_to_have_legal_rights.thtml
But as has already been mentioned, he got the owner's name from the Facebook page displayed on the phone. Did he attempt to leave it with the bartender? No. Did he report it to the police? No. If he had left it with the bartender, Gray Powell would have gotten it back the next day, as he made multiple attempts to contact the bar to see if they had found it or if someone had turned it in.
What he did do was call Apple support. Apple support? What sense does this make? He knew the owner's name. Did he mention the owner's name? No. Apple support asked for a photograph of the phone so they could verify that it was one of theirs. He did not provide a photograph. They were technical support; they were not equipped to deal with lost prototypes. They had no knowledge of prototypes, and this could have been one of hundreds of such calls that they receive about what look like cobbled together iPhones that might be Chinese knock-offs.
Here's the first clue. Apple technical support is not where you go to report a found item. You should first leave it at the place of business where you found it. The rightful owner will probably go there looking for it. Barring that, you take it to the police, who will turn it over to the owner if it is reported missing or stolen. Calling Apple support is not a serious attempt. He merely did enough to tell himself, "Oh well. I tried", perhaps even thinking that the law would agree.
Even so, they opened up a help ticket for him. If he was silly enough to think they were the right folks to contact, he should have held on to it and waited. Instead, he shopped to the thing around looking for the highest bidder.
The person who found the phone made a documented attempt to return the phone to Apple (which Apple acknowledges), but was blown off. Once he took this action of trying to return the item to the rightful owner, but the owner was not interested in having the item returned, it is not stolen property. Gizmodo did not buy or receive stolen property as Apple did not want the phone back until the story was published on Gizmodo.com.
I was about to buy a new iPod right when all this crap surfaced, but after seeing how Apple chooses to act and involve itself with the police, I'm not interested in funding any of their actions thru my purchase. Zune here I come!
PS- Isn't Microsoft the one that's supposed to be evil?
Who writes this nonsense anyway? I'm really starting to doubt whether the so-called journalists at the INQ have any reasoning powers at all.
Mike is absolutely correct. This is not about "checkbook journalism" it is about an alleged felony. This has nothing really to do with Apple--it has to do with a crime and that is why the police are involved.
@Psihomodo
"And where does it say it was stolen?
The man left it there, so it is his doing, end of discussion.
What a bunch of lame ass smug so-called-journalists and theis law suit comments...
I dislike US even more now :P"
Good grief! You obviously don't know any of the facts. Why don't you Google it and get some more information before you post nonsense. To amplify what Seward has said, the moment the thief walked out of the bar with that phone (Gizmodo claims he did not know it was anything but a simple production iPhone at the time) he became a thief. Anyone with any sense of ethics would have handed it to the bar tender immediately--note: it has been reported that the poor hapless engineer called the bar multiple times inquiring about the phone. He stole that phone, pure and simple. Unfortunately for him he didn't know the magnitude of his crime until later and then compounded and ensured its full exposure when he sold it to Gizmodo.
INQ, I know you get great pleasure from being edgy, but at least try to think a little before you post drivel like this. If this represents your journalistic standards then I really have to doubt whether any of the information on your site is at all reliable.
QUOTE: "The man left it there, so it is his doing, end of discussion.
What a bunch of lame ass smug so-called-journalists and theis law suit comments...
I dislike US even more now :P"
Let's see. Under English common law, the failure to return mislaid property would be a crime and buying the same would also be a crime. No different in the US, except that California (and most US States) have a Penal Code that makes it a crime to take lost property as your own without making a reasonable and just effort to locate the owner - the "finder" allegedly did not and thus (if true) became a thief - especially when he sold it. The purchaser allegedly violated another Penal Code statute against the purchase of stolen property.
Really, what great country do YOU live in that it is NOT against ethics and the law to find someone's blackberry, car keys or wallet and NOT ONLY do nearly nothing to return the same (i.e., give it to the barkeep), but SELL the same as well. The only answer one can give is that criminal conduct is the norm in a country with those ethics. So, it's NOT about the publication of news - or the purchase of information from a source - it's about the alleged theft and conversion of someone else's property - someone whose name was KNOWN to the "finder" when he opened up the phone and saw the owner's facebook page.
Oh please settle down rabid fanbois.
I am sure Apple is in a better position than anyone to decide what it wants and can do in the matter. Apple did all they could, at no time did gizmo try to hinder recovery. There is also no doubt in anyones mind that Apple has a bigger legal staff than design team. After all they did release the same phone over and over and over......and you people got, over and over and over...
Did it ever occur to apple and rabid fanboys that maybe people dont like their designs? That people would actually think they are tacky or repulsive even?
I saw the what gizmodo plublished and there was no corporate 007 spinonage.
They simply pointed out the obvious, the Iphone has A serious battery and signal problem. After 4 phones, you have to hand it to apple for finally adressing some issues. I wonder how long it will take them to adress the low resolution screen?
And where does it say it was stolen?
The man left it there, so it is his doing, end of discussion.
What a bunch of lame ass smug so-called-journalists and theis law suit comments...
I dislike US even more now :P
Sounds like the other news organizations are jelous they werent in gizmodo's place, gizmodo isnt the first to do something like this.
Journalists pay for stories. That's fine. What's not fine is that Gizmodo paid for a PHYSICAL object and reversed engineered intellectual property for the world to see. That is STEALING.
Change the scenario.
A laptop with instructions on building weapons was found or stolen.
A print or web publisher buys the laptop even though the name of the owner was clearly labeled.
They publish plans for weapons, because it is everybody's right to know.
Property is property. One does not have the moral or legal right to sell someone else's property without their permission. I say this because they have not given detailed info on how the finder tried to contact Apple and the scant info on the net has not been consistent.
Time to understand morality.
The funny thing is none of this would be happening if this was a RIM phone and a RIM engineer who was named.
Everyone would be falling over themselves congratulating Giz for the scoop and laughing at RIM for failing to protect their prototypes.
Gizmodo purchased property which they knew was stolen. They then opened it up and revealed Apple's trade secrets to the world at large. There's no question that their actions have cost Apple millions.
So it certainly doesn't seem, on the face of it, unreasonable for Apple to sue.
As to why Jeff Bercovici, myself, and a whole bunch of other people are so keen to see that happen, it has everything to do with Gizmodo naming the poor bastard who lost the phone when it was impossible to argue that it was in the public interest to do so. Added to which, Nick Denton and Brian Lam are being unbelievably smug about the whole thing.
They have nothing to be proud of here.
The problem is not "checkbook journalism." The problem is receiving stolen items.
Had Gizmodo met with the guy who found the phone, said "Here's $5000 to let us photograph and play with it, now let's call the bar or the cops and return it" -- fine, great, neither an ethical or a legal issue.
Unfortunately, CA law is pretty clear that, absent a reasonable effort to return lost property to its owner (like, for instance, telling the bar owner or the cops "If anyone lost a phone, have them call me"), keeping it is theft. Selling it is theft. Buying it is theft.
Nick Denton says he's ready to do anything for a story (http://twitter.com/nicknotned/status/12494583575). Does that include a year in jail?
Gizmodo came across a great opportunity, they bent the rules a bit, they got a great story and (probably) were careful enough that they won't face any legal recriminations.
Sounds like good news gathering to me.
Other reporters who are so scandalized by what Gizmodo did should look for employment opportunities in PR.
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