There are some interesting journalism questions that arise out of Gizmodo’s major scoop on the iPhone 4G. Quick wrap: Gizmodo paid $5,000 for what appears to be a lost iPhone 4G. (A letter from Apple to Gizmodo pretty much eliminates any question about the device’s authenticity.) Apparently one of the iPhone developers left it in a bar (d’oh!) and Gizmodo acquired it. Later, amid plenty of questions about the veracity of the story, Gizmodo wrote a new post, this one mentioning the name of the developer who lost the phone. So we get not one nor two but three Journalism Questions here:
1. Was Gizmodo right to pay for the phone?
2. Was Gizmodo right in running the story without confirmation that it, indeed, had the iPhone 4G?
3. Should Gizmodo have named the person who lost the phone?
Very interested in hearing what the LR Faithful think of this one. There’s no question this is a scoop… do you agree with how Gizmodo handled it?
UPDATE 4/20: Some of your thoughts, as written in the comments:
Kevin doesn’t like how Gizmodo acquired the device: “They bought something from someone they knew belonged to someone else. That is surely a crime. Now if they’d just been given it it would be a different matter, they didn’t. They paid for it.”
J.C. Burns writes: “(Gizmodo’s) actions are about as far removed from journalism as I can imagine… If this is a story about a corporation doing wrong somewhere—if its intent was to reveal something about Apple’s vendor’s labor practices in China, for example, then I’d be a lot more open to unnamed sources and deceptive-ish approaches to get at corporate secrets.”
DeRushaJ writes: “Should they have named the person who lost the phone? No. That was really a sideshow to the story. What’s the difference who the phone-loser is? Should they have named the person who sold them the phone? I think so. That goes to motivation, authenticity, and would have been useful to know.”
Piggy rightly asks for clarification regarding the term 4G, which has come to mean both “the fourth-generation iPhone” and the “new 4G speedier wireless internet” now being rolled out. In the case of the new iPhone, 4G will refer to the model, unless noted otherwise.
Steve evidently supports Gizmodo’s purchase: “$5k was a bargain. Gizmodo is getting play all over the net today.”
Dayton writes: “Gizmodo’s action amounts to bribery and theft, and publicly outing the engineer who misplaced the iPhone was utterly reprehensible. I don’t think it will hurt Apple’s bottom line significantly but the engineer’s career is irrevocably, needlessly and cruelly damaged.”
And “Steve Jobs” (hiya!) takes LR for task for even running the story: “Three silly questions from you, trying to pump news-related traffic to your site… Such a humbug over how Gizmodo runs their site, when the story is at Gizmodo, not at lostremote.com … sorry guys. This was a lame set of questions to ask.”
I’ll stand by asking the questions. We have a long history of raising questions of ethical journalism and seeing what good can come from the debate. We’re not a traffic-driven site, we’re audience-driven. So extra page views don’t help us, save perhaps for our egos. What we consider important and relevant is the idea of checkbook journalism and “outing” a person who, it would appear, accidentally caused a major leak of one of the world’s most popular tech products.
No related posts.
1. Yeah. They bought a pig in a poke. They didn't know if it was the real 4G until they got their hands on it.
2. Yep. They quickly deduced that it was the 4G. They ran it based on their best assessment at the moment. They were proven 100% right.
3. Sure. Apple already knows who lost it. In fact, the phone had already been remote wiped by the time Gizmodo got a hold of it. So why hide the name?
There you go:
Three silly questions from you, trying to pump news-related traffic to your site.
Three answers from me saying “Meh … what 'controversy' are you trying to allude to anyway?”
Such a humbug over how Gizmodo runs their site, when the story is at Gizmodo, not at lostremote.com … sorry guys. This was a lame set of questions to ask.
They bought something from someone they knew belonged to someone else. That is surely a crime.
Now if they'd just been given it it would be a different matter, they didn't. They paid for it.
Should they have released the information. Yes. But they did it as a result of a crime (not stolen but the person that sold it did not own it, and they knew that) so hopefully the police will be knocking on their door to give them a warning (as it wasn't done with bad intent, just stupidity).
Their actions are about as far removed from journalism as I can imagine.
If one rejects that—and says “oh yeah, this is what breaking a story is all about…this IS journalism these days” then it becomes easy to tuck your ethics far, far away and answer “heck, why not?” to any of those questions.
If this is a story about a corporation doing wrong somewhere—if its intent was to reveal something about Apple's vendor's labor practices in China, for example, then I'd be a lot more open to unnamed sources and deceptive-ish approaches to get at corporate secrets.
If (as it is) this is about their next consumer good, their next product, then what muck is being raked?
And in a related question, should Gizmodo's reviewer be telling the world that he watches HBO and Showtime programs without paying for them?
http://ow.ly/1Aflw
I have conflicting views on this. On one hand, it seems more intellectually honest to simply pay the source for the phone, rather than paying to fly them to New York, put them up in a fancy hotel, pay to license a photo of the phone, and then have them live on a network morning show.
Should they have named the person who lost the phone? No. That was really a sideshow to the story. What's the difference who the phone-loser is?
Should they have named the person who sold them the phone? I think so. That goes to motivation, authenticity, and would have been useful to know.
I believe it's real However I believe for a FACT it's not 4G Guaranteed. There is no suporting network or chipset for the 4G LTE spec as of yet and Apple is not making a IPhone for sprint WIMAX.
Although my above comment is false if you are using the nomenclature 4G to indicate the 4th iteration of the Iphone and not the Technology known as 4G.
I really don't care …
$5k was a bargain.
gizmodo is getting play all over the net today.
imagine what an apple competitor might have paid to get a look under the hood. at least it's out in the open this way.
part of me says apple ain't this dumb, but alcohol does do strange things.
My non-lawyer understanding is that the finder of a lost article has an obligation under law to make a reasonable effort to find the owner and return it. This obligation becomes even more stringent for articles of significant value, and I'm pretty sure there is no legal theory that says it's OK to keep a lost article when you KNOW who the owner is, much less accept a bribe to pass it along to a third party. Gizmodo's action amounts to bribery and theft, and publicly outing the engineer who misplaced the iPhone was utterly reprehensible. I don't think it will hurt Apple's bottom line significantly but the engineer's career is irrevocably, needlessly and cruelly damaged.
P.S.: Connect With Facebook: Invalid Argument
The Facebook Connect cross-domain receiver URL (http://www.lostremote.com/wp-content/plugins/di...) must have the application's Connect URL (http://www.myballard.com) as a prefix. You can configure the Connect URL in the Application Settings Editor.
worth a scan-
http://www.twitter.com/nicknotned
You missed the point here Steve. Gizmodo is not journalism. The questions you ask don't pertain to a site like Gizmodo. You're mixing apples and journalism!
The whole thing reminds me of the The Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld. Apple being the soup Nazi because they carefully hand out news to only those deserving news sites who abide by Apples protocols told Gizmodo, “No press access for you!” after reporting Steve Jobs health issues.
Well just like Elaine, Gizmodo found the secret recipe to Apples next iPhone. What do you think is going to happen???
Can't wait for the next installment, Gizmodo vs. Mecha-gizmodo!
At least it wasn't TechCrunch.
That must leave the others sad.
And lots of crazy flying monkeys. Yeah,
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Lucy
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Oh, YAY…a spammer fell in love with you.
Who cares?
Gee, kids, it was rough for the two days the world stopped on it's axis.
BUT WE SURVIVED!
That thing is nowhere near finished, for criminy's sake, it's like GM disguising a new model to test it, covered in vinyl and fake parts.
maybe you said it