Gizmodo vs. critics of iPhone scoop

Gizmodo did a good thing and a bad thing yesterday. The good thing was publishing the gadget-blogging scoop of the decade--this summer's iPhone!--an honor shared by Engadget and a blogger named TEDream, both of whom scored earlier photographic ur-scoops of the new model.The bad thing was the ludicrously dramatic outing of the Apple engineer who lost the prototype. This earned Giz a well-deserved backlash, but we shouldn't let it overshadow the value of the original scoop. Checkbook journalism has its uses, and journalism of any kind is gold dust in the PR-fed world of gadget writing. BBG fans may be pleased to see that Joel Johnson, now at Gizmodo, agrees that the engineer's outing was a bad idea. He also kills another rumor doing the rounds--this being that the whole thing was a controlled leak--and repeats the point that access journalism sucks. You shouldn't trust the tech press PR corps who are happy with it any more than you trust Gizmodo.

It's impossible to argue that "access journalism" has anything but a deleterious effect on the objectivity of journalists. Journalists will often freak out if you point this out because you are implying they are ethically or psychologically compromised. Tough shit. As someone who also gets sneak previews from gadget companies and free gear to test, even if temporarily, I have to cop to it, too. We do our best not to let it influence us, but to deny there is any influence at all is disingenuous. ...

Almost everyone in tech writing is compromised, but in this instance, only Gizmodo, Engadget and a single anonymous blogger have anything to show for it. It's hardly fair to complain about gadget writers rewriting press releases, then complain about how they get to real news, too. There's just not that much on the beat that isn't spooned out by PR people; if it takes a drunken employee's mishap and a paid-off thief, that's what it takes. Also, those fantasizing in public about someone prosecuting Gizmodo should put it away. It's disgusting. If you find Giz intolerable now, imagine it getting to mythologize its victimhood as a crusading poster child for press freedoms. God help us if Apple sues it or if it is prosecuted over this! Finally, you know what that SIM slot means? I think it means we're stuck with AT&T for another gen. Damn. Apple Didn't Leak the iPhone--And Why That Matters [Gizmodo]

• [Anonymous]

  Australia has a law called “Theft by Finding” – if you find something but do not make ‘reasonable effort’* to find the original owner then you are stealing it. If you cannot find the owner, then you can keep it.

  We had a recent case where a suitcase was bought from a thrift store. It had $100,000 AUD in it. The people who found the money kept it, but the police found out due to their boasting, and they are now being charged…

  Finders Keepers is a statement of intent to steal over here :)

  *It is the problem of defining things like “reasonable effort” that keeps lawyers well paid

• [eZee]

  Total BS, you cant get anything from Apple HQ without mother Jobs’ permission.
  The only way this would be more obvious is if it had “LEAK TO PRESS” stenciled on it.

  But in the tinnnny chance that I am wrong: couldnt have happened to a nicer bunch of people. ;)

• [Terry]

  Luckily, we have the ability to send a message about this. Just stop going to Gizmodo (and all the rest of Denton’s garbage sites. They’re all written by petulant children, anyway). If you can’t (say you’re addicted to gadget porn), at least tweak your browser and/or hosts to block their sponsors so that your page-views won’t generate revenue for the asshats.

• [agraham999]

  I think there is an ethical line here that is similar to fruit of the poisonous tree.
  
  This all started with one person who chose not to do any of the following:
  
  1.Give the phone to the bartender.
  2.Open the phone and find the SIM card which would give him the phones provider
  3.Alternatively you could look in the phone for the owner’s info
  4.When finding it was a special phone he could have gotten it to Apple if he really wanted to.
  
  Instead he did everything totally wrong…from snooping on the owner of the phone…to then selling the phone and that information. There is no high road here that Giz or the thief who took the phone can take. They were both complicit in doing something for a gain…and lost all cred in my book…I’ve also purged all Denton properties from my browser.
  
  We all knew the phone was coming…and regardless of what company was involved…it was improper and immoral to take part in someone else’s deception.
  
  Personally I would recommend to anyone who finds something like a lost phone…the best thing you can do is return said phone to the phone provider who can trace the SIM card to the owner…this is better than opening their phone and reading their personal info. If we can’t have the common courtesy to provide that basic level of privacy for each other…then we’re all in a lot of trouble depending how much info we keep on our phones.

  BTW…guess who powers Giz/Gawker mobile ads? Quattro Wireless…and who owns Quattro Wireless?

  Apple

• [Goofball Jones]

  What did Gizmodo give us though? There was very little “scoop”. Okay, they showed some hardware that’s coming out in probably 2 months and didn’t really tell us anything. They bought a lost/stolen phone and wrote a story that they got a lost/stolen phone. What did we learn? What did they inform us on? I mean…really? The “story” was the story itself.

  Also, this isn’t journalism. Journalism is when you get some facts, you write a story, you double/triple check the facts with other sources and then you go with WHAT YOU HAVE at the time. You don’t get/fabricate the entire story all at once, then dole it out piecemeal with the “tune in tomorrow to see if Lassie saves little Timmy” mindset. Gizmodo was going for page hits and nothing more, and boy they sure got them. I wouldn’t even call this tabloid journalism because I don’t think “journalism” should even be used to describe what this is.

  But hey, Nick Denton that runs Gawker and it’s incarnations (which Gizmodo is part of), is from the world of British tabloids. So he doesn’t really care as long as people click on the websites and hey, click on an ad or two while your there!

• [bardfinn]

  There is yet another possibility that no-one has yet (AFAIK) mentioned: deliberate counterintelligence operations on the part of Apple. How better to find out which news outlet / blog / author is willing and able to exploit Apple’s apparent misfortune, than a lost prototype which is purposefully monitored for activity until shortly after it reaches the offices of the publication in question (at which point it is remotely bricked) – ?

  This hypothesis would be tested by watching to see if Gizmodo/Engadget is routinely snubbed by Apple’s PR machine, denied advance access, not offered press credentials, etcetera. They got the scoop of the (uh, year? year.) year, but they also might be flogged and keelhauled as a warning to any other publication that doesn’t heave or row in time to Apple’s boatswain’s call.

• [David Pescovitz]

  http://gizmodo.com/251009/stolen-laptop-pics-not-a-hoax-after-all

  “If you know any of the people in these pictures, please let us know at [e-mail] and we’ll pass the information along to the rightful owner of those two stolen MacBooks.”

  Unless, of course, the MacBooks are unreleased models, in which case we’ll pay you handsomely *not* to return them to the rightful owner. ; )

• [Anonymous]

  One thing is certain, Apple will wipe out the competition when this thing hits the market.

• [Anonymous]

  Not knowing US law, I immediately acknowledge that the following is purely based on my intuition.
  Also, over here, buying stolen goods in good faith (ie you didn’t know they were stolen) grants you immunity from prosecution and makes you the new legal owner. I understand that is not the case in the US.

  This brings me to my point:

  Why would Apple sue for theft? AFAIK, that requires something to be stolen. Since the device was returned, nothing is stolen anymore. (the act of theft still occurred though, but more on that below) That takes Apple out as an interested party. They have their property back; what happened to it in the meantime is irrelevant to Apple IMO.
  One could even argue that Gizmodo helped Apple recover the item, since if someone else bought it Apple might still not have recovered it.

  Apple could report a crime (theft), which would leave it to the police, and eventually the DA, to charge people with a crime, after which this would go to court.

  Apple might be able to sue for trade secret breach, but I have no knowledge whatsoever on the intricacies of that part of the law.

  But suing someone for theft who returned the item in question is ridiculous.
  As for the journalism angle: regardless of how Gizmodo got the item, you cannot blame them to do what they are supposed to do (ie. be journalists and scoop an item). That includes opening it up; those are the risks of testing prototypes in public.

  And as for suing the original “finder”, I don’t know to what extent that person falls under the right of journalists to keep their sources secret.

  But again, why; the item was returned, case closed.
  All that’s left is bruised egos (combined with an overly abused US legal system that could be a bad thing) and a prematurely revealed iPhone. Better to let cooler heads prevail, close this and start gearing up for the official reveal, than to have this issue live on any longer than necessary (distracts from the PR message and threatens to breach the reality distortion field).

  Lemme put it this way:
  If I lost a phone, someone picked it up, sold it on, and the buyer subsequently contacted me to return it, i’d be thanking the buyer, not suing their ass.

• [ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive]

  Journalism is publishing something that someone doesn’t want you to publish. This so rarely happens in gadget blogs that I just can’t take it seriously when people look at actual bona-fide news scoops like this and say that the way they went about it is evidence of bad journalism.

  Are you saying that the ends justify the means?

  • [Rob Beschizza]

    Sometimes!

• [Terry]

  Journalism is publishing something that someone doesn’t want you to publish. This so rarely happens in gadget blogs that I just can’t take it seriously when people look at actual bona-fide news scoops like this and say that the way they went about it is evidence of bad journalism.

  Or maybe what this is telling us is that gadget blogs aren’t necessarily ‘journalism’.

• [Anonymous]

  Other than the “gee whiz” scoop factor, pissing off Steve Jobs, and (presumably) getting an Apple guy fired, how does this story matter? The next gen iPhone will go on sale and people will buy it or not, but the fact that it’s been outed on Gizmodo surely won’t factor in to their final decision.

• [Anonymous]

  “Also, those fantasizing in public about someone prosecuting Gizmodo should put it away. It’s disgusting. If you find Giz intolerable now, imagine it getting to mythologize its victimhood as a crusading poster child for press freedoms. God help us if Apple sues it or if it is prosecuted over this!”

  So, if this had been, say, a 2012 BMW 5-Series, instead of an iPhone, would the guy who sold it, and Gizmodo exec be going to jail for Grand Theft Auto? Why, yes. So, exactly how is this different?

  • [teapot]

    So, if this had been, say, a 2012 BMW 5-Series, instead of an iPhone, would the guy who sold it, and Gizmodo exec be going to jail for Grand Theft Auto? Why, yes. So, exactly how is this different?

    ..because this is a bricked piece of future ijunk, not an awesome, functional car?

• [Falcon_Seven]

  Some people are dicks when it comes to finding the lost property of others, “Finders keepers blah, blah, blah.” Those that turn in lost items hope that others would do the same if they were in the same situation. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with everyone.
  In California there are laws that have been enacted specifically because of the dicketry of those who abscond with lost property -Google for it for an education. Gizmodo is going to get sued by Apple under those statutes. They deserve it.
  Poor Gray’s probably going to lose his job over this. I can feel the veins on ST-VE’S head pounding right now and the reverberations of his screams. Let’s all hope that this guy doesn’t have his career compromised permanently by this.

  • [Rob Beschizza]

    Yes! I agree completely with everything everyone says here about the story revealing the engineer’s identity. But we keep judging the newsworthiness of the gadget reveal itself (at least within tech writing) by that act.

    Conflating the two stories is interesting if you want to make a general moral point about Gawker, but it doesn’t say much about whether it was justified in acquiring and publishing info about the new iPhone when it got the chance. Nor does it say anything about whether the end — knowing about the phone and its technology — justified the means of buying it from a likely thief who says he found it in a bar.

    When Apple let it out into the wild, it accepted the risk that it could be lost and fall into the press’s clutches. This is why one legal analyst suggests Apple can’t successfully argue that trade secrets were stolen by Gizmodo, even if the phone itself was stolen by the unnamed finder.

    And to re-iterate, I’m not fine with how it revealed the engineer’s identity. I keep trying to imagine how that story, the circumstances of which reveal interesting things about how Apple field-tests new gear, could have been done ‘right.’ But all the things I think up don’t include the guy’s name being published beside a photo of him contrived to make him look like a giant drunken douche.
    

    • [Terry]

      Conflating the two stories is interesting if you want to make a general moral point about Gawker, but it doesn’t say much about whether it was justified in acquiring and publishing info about the new iPhone when it got the chance. Nor does it say anything about whether the end — knowing about the phone and its technology — justified the means of buying it from a likely thief who says he found it in a bar.

      When Apple let it out into the wild, it accepted the risk that it could be lost and fall into the press’s clutches. This is why one legal analyst suggests Apple can’t successfully argue that trade secrets were stolen by Gizmodo, even if the phone itself was stolen by the unnamed finder.

      Gizmodo bought a phone from a person they knew it didn’t belong to. A person who – by your own admission – they probably knew had stolen the phone. Doesn’t this make them an accessory to a crime? If the thief had sold the phone to a fence or a pawn shop, you can be damn sure they would get arrested for their part in the crime.

      And Apple ‘accepted the risk that the phone could fall into the clutches of the press’? Does this mean that when a woman walks down the street with a handbag, she is ‘accepting the risk that it could fall into the clutches of a purse-snatcher’?

      Apple may have been stupid in this one, but Gizmodo wins the prize for unethical behavior. And when the dust settles, we’ll probably find that they also win the prize for criminal behavior.

      To answer your question: No. The ends (in your words “knowing about the phone and its technology”, in my words “writing a story about an unreleased technology for profit”) do not justify the means (in your words “buying it from a likely thief who says he found it in a bar”, in my words “knowingly breaking the law”).

      Why are trying so hard to justify clearly criminal behavior?

• [Ceronomus]

  So, in California a person has three YEARS to reclaim lost property. So…

  The person who picked up the phone was guilty of theft the moment he decided to sell it.

  Gizmodo was guilty of receiving stolen property the moment they bought it. I don’t even know WHAT they were thinking when they dismantled it.

  The reason they are covering for the guy they bought the phone from is that he could do some jail time if his identity was known, plus the damage that Apple would do in their inevitable lawsuit. Gizmodo protects their criminal source and thus encourages other people to do the same thing in the future.

  I’m pretty certain that Giz will skate on the receiving charge since they turned the phone over to Apple upon receiving a claim.

  They are still total douche-bags though. I’m done with them. Not because they will probably have gotten the engineer fired (let’s face it, Apple probably knew who had the phone and thus, who lost it) but because they broadcast him on the web so that nobody else is likely to ever hire him.

  This isn’t journalism. This is a school yard bully and his pals tossing the stolen iphone over the poor kid’s (ie the engineer) head while saying “Dude, is this your phone. Don’t you want it?” and then handing it over to the kid’s parents with a smile and a wink saying “Oh, you only had to ask.”

• [a random John]

  I have slightly mixed feelings about outing the guy who had been carrying the phone. On the one hand it makes him the object of permanent public ridicule as the internets never forget and this will follow him each time he applies for a job in the future.

  On the other hand it might save his current job, as his sudden celebrity might make him harder to fire but not much.

  Overall I think what they did to him was terrible, and the person that sold the phone to Giz is a certifiable jerk.

  • [phoomp]

    “the person that sold the phone to Giz is a certifiable jerk”

    Why? He attempted to return the phone to it’s owner, but after waiting for 3 weeks, it would appear that they weren’t interested.

    What *should* he have done?

    • [Anonymous]

      He should have contacted the guy who left it in the bar. One simple Facebook message: “Hey, I found your phone at the bar.”

    • [agraham999]

      He could have taken it to any Apple store and given it to a manager or taken it to any ATT store and given it to a manager or put it in a box and shipped it to..um…oh yeah

      1 Infinite Loop
      Cupertino CA

      Or there is always emailing Steve Jobs…I bet he’d take it pretty seriously.

      I don’t really think he tried that hard…do you?

  • [fxq]

    A certain guy’s had something happen to him and he left a nasty message on and answering machine. It went meme, everyone had a laugh. I “collected” it and kept it on my website.

    TEN YEARS LATER this same guy sends me an email asking me to take down the sound clip because I was the #1 Google listing when searching for his name. Just because of that one bad moment in his life (and having an easily googleable name) he’s rarely had any peace; his employers bring it up, his friends bring it up – it’s his “evil” long tail, if you will.

    His email broke my heart and I erased the page from my site. Nobody deserves that kind of punishment.

    Apologies for being vague. I’m doing it because I respect the dead (meme) and want it to stay dead.

    Let sleeping dogs die.

  • [Anonymous]

    Well he really sold Gizmodo the right to return the phone to apple which I don’t think is really that bad.

  • [teapot]

    Overall I think what they did to him was terrible, and the person that sold the phone to Giz is a certifiable jerk.

    Yeah! Everyone knows who he should have sold it to.

• [Anonymous]

  It would help if someone bothered to read California law, instead of guessing at false equivalents. According to CA law, the phone was stolen. And since Giz paid $5000 instead of 50-500 meant they too knew what it was, breaking the law again.
  This isn’t about Apple being mean, or about journalistic rights. A freakin law has been broken and it isn’t petty theft. Real charges are in order.

• [styrofoam]

  The thing about this situation that makes me think this story isn’t quite as kosher as it could be- the person that found it made an effort to call Apple (corroborated by a random tech support person?) but didn’t do something as simple as contact Gray Powell via Facebook or a basic web search. (I imagine that name is going to be linkspammed beyond belief now.)

  It would have been pretty easy for the finder to do that.
  Or Gizmodo to buy the phone, knowning full well who dropped it (Gray Powell, as stated by the original finder, and apparently mentioned to Gizmodo) and who owned it.

  Is it legal to find stuff on the street and sell it?
  Is it legal to find stuff on the street and sell it, if you know who owns it?
  Is it lebal to buy something that somebody found on the street, if you know who owned it?

  If the answers to this are all yes, then Gismodo’s got nothing to worry about.
  It’s probalby morally questionable to have bought/sold that device, but I’m sure you can justify it in the name of “HARD HITTING INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM”.

  It’ll be interesting to see what the repurcussions of this saga are, be it legalaction, Apple not extending press invitations to Giz any more, or maybe just nothing. I don’t see Jobs inviting BLam or Diaz over for a relaxing cup of tea any time soon.

  On the other hand… OH MY GOD, APPLE IS RELEASING A NEW PHONE. STOP THE PRESSES! I’m kind of disappointed in the fact that this is as earthshaking a discovery as it is. It makes calls. it’s smaller. It has a camera. Who would have guessed? Oh, wait. That’s right. Everybody.

  • [Anonymous]

    It is, in fact, illegal to buy a prototype phone on the street like this, regardless of whether it was stolen. Under California law it is considered “stealing trade secrets”.

• [i_prefer_yeti]

  In telling and retelling the story, Gizmodo keeps skipping the step where you do what any normal person would do and return the f*cking phone to the bar and let the bar owner throw it in the lost and found box.

  As soon as the narrative moves past that point everyone involved’s actions become morally compromised.

  • [Anonymous]

    Well said.

  • [Damon Law]

    Totally agree and promote this.

    I once found a relatively new phone, one that was better than mine, better than my friends, etc. I though about keeping it, passing on to a friend who desperately needed an upgrade, after a bit decided that the owner probably missed it. Did a little digging on the phone, found the owner, called her up and arranged to return her phone. She was a sweet older lady who really missed it, was surprised I would return it (I looked a bit gothy at the time), offered to pay me, which I refused.

    If it’s not yours – it’s not yours. Try to find the owner or return it to the place you found it or the police.

    • [Anonymous]

      If it’s not yours – it’s not yours. Well said.

  • [Maggie Koerth-Baker]

    As someone who left her phone at a bar two weeks ago and benefited from the a kind soul turning it into the bartender, I have to agree. Thank you, good people* who don’t walk off with phones they find at bars.

    I haven’t decided what I think about Gizmodo’s paying the third-party for a sketchily acquired iPhone. That bit reminds me of the Kobayashi Maru-esque group discussion problems from J-school ethics class that had no right answers and about 5,000 wrong ones.

    But I’m pretty comfortable with assuming that the third-party in question is a douche.

    *On the other hand, this “kindness” I experienced may have more to do with the fact that I’m still rocking a free-with-your-contract dumbphone candybar model from two years ago.

  • [David Pescovitz]

    I’m with the Yeti on this one. For me, the whole thing went nasty way before the guy even “discovered” that it wasn’t a current model iPhone that he took home with him, knowing it wasn’t his. Finders keepers is bullshit.

    • [i_prefer_yeti]

      Sheeeeit, I saw A Simple Plan, I know what happens when you can’t leave well enough alone.

      If Hollywood has taught me anything, it’s taught me that there’s a 3rd act yet to be played out in this farce…

  • [Anonymous]

    Most journalism is morally compromised. Even the good stuff.

• [Alviel]

  “Journalism is publishing something that someone doesn’t want you to publish.”

  If that’s real journalism, no wonder journalism is dying. The natural extension of your argument Rob is that if you can make money/attention airing somebody else’s dirty laundry, you have a right do it. Maybe you do, but putting money or the “scoop” first sounds a lot like Goldman Sachs, sounds like Enron, sounds like to many things we here reported in the news. It kills trust. I think the comments here and Gizmodo show that people are tired of it. I think they are particular hurt because while the guys at Gizmodo may have a history of being prankster, most thought they were above putting the “scoop” first.

• [kaffeen]

  Laws were broken, an employee was incredibly irresponsible, and Gizmodo was responsible for incredibly poor reporting and poor judgment. I’m not sure I’m seeing the difference between any other day on this planet other than the fact that Jobs, Apple, and iPhone are keywords in the story. Personally, I’m quite thrilled that Apple got screwed (ya, I don’t like them) and that Gizmodo might face legal penalty (them either). The only thing I don’t like about this whole thing is the engineer being outed; everyone deserves to be fired in private.

• [Terry]

  Put me in the ‘Giz sucks’ column.

  • [Anonymous]

    I agree with Terry, I think maybe the guy didn’t find it but stole it! I hope they prosecute both the “finder and jizzmodo! Taking anything that doesn’t belong to you is wrong!Apple needs to go after these jerks so it won’t start happening all over! And,yes not returning something you know belongs to someones else is theft! Selling in this case would be a felony!(value)

• [zio_donnie]

  Apparently they paid 5000$ for the thing, they went so far as to risk a lawsuit for theft yet they just post low res photos and they can’t even figure what material is the back of the phone made of. Mmmm yeah right. Then they out the guy (IMHO) to prove this is a legit scoop and not a PR stunt. Mmmm again since they could have backed him up if and when Apple crucified him. Outing him will not do him any good as i can easily imagine him not being fired imediately but relegated in a backroom somewhere till everyone just forgets about this.

  This story just sucks because of the self importance of all those involved. Big words like journalism and freedom thrown around yet the written story feels like a PR stunt all the same. Probably because it is a PR stunt.

  Gizmodo is still an Apple PR sidekick and those who orchestrated the stunt are still not journalists just PR people. I mean WTF they got a bricked phone yet they found it was the best thing EVER. What next they get a pulitzer for the effort?

• [narrowstreetsLA]

  I think it’s kinda quaint, but understandable, that we still believe that objective journalism exists. That somewhere, a magical Shangri-La of clear-eyed fairness lies in a far-off land. And that if we just keep trying, we’ll one day find it.

• [Jupiter BFPOE]

  Why should someone profit from their luck–allegedly finding the phone? I would suggest that Apple give them a reward for returning the phone once they knew what it was which had to have been immediately. This reward, IMHO, would be completely voluntary but definitely good karma. There seems to be some accusations that the phone was stolen rather than lost and found. If that’s true, it just demonstrates the folly of checkbook journalism–it creates the story. It’s bad enough we have to deal with the pure media whores who do it simply for exposure–we shouldn’t be paying cash.

  There’s no reason why Apple shouldn’t be able to control information about future products as they see best for their company’s strategy. People should not be encouraged to obtain this information for general release. Although I have to admit I am a regular MacRumors reader so I’m really part of the problem.

• [Terry]

  From a Bill Moyers interview with Bob Edwards (just after Edwards retired):

  MOYERS: What troubles you most about this field we work in today?

  EDWARDS: The money. The money, the need to make money, the news division as profit center. Because that’s what’s different from Murrow’s time and ours. News wasn’t expected to make money then. News was a loss leader. You did news because it was a good thing to do.

  MOYERS: Go to public service. I know that sounds a little old-fashioned.

  EDWARDS: That’s what broadcasters did. But the owners today are not really broadcasters. They’re entrepreneurs. They are the CEOs of huge conglomerates, much bigger than even Paley would dream of. And they look to the news division to be just like their theater chain, their business properties, their real estate holdings. They’re supposed to turn a profit, just like all the other profit centers.

  I think they hit upon a pivotal point in the field of journalism.

• [Lucifer]

  Meh. So a drunk dork deflates Steve Jobs’ next big Mac World reveal. Apple cult members will keep donating toward the cause. Nothing changes. It’s like getting a scoop that Ironman 3 is going to be made or leaves are going detach from trees in the fall.

• [Tenlow]

  Eh, I’m going to take a break from boingboing for a while. Too many extremists here. The worst crime that took place was bad judgement. Saying someone should get charged or even sued is going too far. Why not charge the guy who lost the phone with theft and industrial espionage? I’d bet that the paperwork he signed with apple before he took the phone off campus didn’t allow him to leave the phone in a bar. The guy who found the phone did a bad job, but it sounds like he did try to find the owner. What if he HAD turned it over to the bar and the bar owner sold it to Giz? What if the guy from the bar had in fact turned it in to the police? It doesn’t sound like apple called the police and reported the phone lost/stolen/missing, so it would have been returned to the guy who found it as his property.

  Also, I don’t know where this “three year” thing came from, because in california, as someone who HAS done the right thing, I have learned first hand that after 30 days the police will return the item to you because they consider it to be abandoned. The owner may have an additional 3 years to claim it, but that doesn’t mean the police are now guilty of theft because they have given you something they didn’t own.

• [Anonymous]

  I’ve been following the story and one thing that has me wondering is the assumption that this is the next iPhone. It’s obviously AN iPhone, but am I wrong to wonder if Apple doesn’t test multiple prototypes before deciding on which to manufacture?

  The pixel density of the screen on this prototype is quite high. The part must be relatively expensive. If I was considering that screen for the 4G, I’d want to do a lot of real-world testing before deciding that the improved image quality was worth the cost.

  What am I missing? Why should we be sure that this is the actual 4G iPhone?

• [Anonymous]

  In other news, Coca-cola leaves it’s top secret Coca-Cola formula in a strip club, dares Pepsi to pick it up.

• [ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive]

  Sometimes!

  I can see tarnishing one’s journalistic ethics if the story has political importance, like Watergate or Iran Contra. But it seems to me, a journalist who lowers his moral standards just to get a scoop on a gadget can’t exactly wrap himself in the flag.

  The purpose of journalism isn’t to publish what someone doesn’t want you to publish. It’s publishing information that the public needs to know. At this point, it looks like a blogger paid a sneak thief $5000 for the right to tear apart an item that didn’t belong to either of them. What was it that the public needed to know?

• [Xenu]

  PR or “scoop,” who cares? This isn’t a news story any more than who Lindsay Lohan is screwing this week.

  • [zio_donnie]

    Maybe you don’t read wired, gizmodo and engadget regularly. Apparently everything Apple is a news story since they will post even the most far fetched rumour and the shittiest mockup they can dig or directly come up with themselves. Gadget porn is big business. Giz got 3 million hits with the iphone scoop and still milks the story (so is everyone else to be fair).

    A real leak posted in the above 3 sites? This is a news story by itself.

  • [Anonymous]

    that would be me… twice

• [cosmorphis]

  I don’t understand how Gizmodo keeps playing the good guys, saying, “Don’t fire him! It was an honest mistake!” when THEY are the one posting pictures of the product that he lost! You want to help the guy out? Give him back the phone, and let him deal with Apple himself. Gizmodo is saying that by giving him so much publicity, Apple couldn’t possibly fire him now … but I tell you what, if I was Gary, I would be ashamed to show my face around there! He will always be known, now and forever, as the guy who lost the prototype that Gizmodo published!!

• [coldspell]

  Why did this phone leave Apple’s office in the first place?

• [pentomino]

  The difference between religion and science is the same as the difference between revelation and observation is the same as the difference between PR and journalism.

• [W. James Au]

  SRSLY, Gizmodo reveals that Apple’s next iPhone will have… pretty much you’d expect it to have. *That’s* the big scoop worth putting a dude’s job in jeopardy? Yes yes, the post has so far gotten 6M page views, and it’s hard to argue with that, but still.

• [koichan]

  “Also, those fantasizing in public about someone prosecuting Gizmodo should put it away. It’s disgusting. If you find Giz intolerable now, imagine it getting to mythologize its victimhood as a crusading poster child for press freedoms. God help us if Apple sues it or if it is prosecuted over this!”

  Indeed. I can’t see Apple suing them though, as they’re so pro-apple now their output is starting to out-class Apples own PR dept :(

  Shame really, as their gadget coverage is really quite good for other things, providing Apple is not a competitor to said device.

• [Hans Grueber]

  Unbelievable. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. Attacking the sanctity of the media shouldn’t be on the top of Apple’s list of priorities. They’re just upset that now we all know that the new iPhone is just like the last one. Thank you Gizmodo for sparing us all the months of pointless hype.

  http://geekcomforts.com/2010/04/the-iphone-saga/

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Hans Grueber,

    Please stop linking to your blog in every comment.

• [doggo]

  While I agree that Gizmodo’s outing the guy who “lost” the phone is wrong, I really have to question the whole “poor-young-engineer-who-might-lose-his-job-because-Gizmodo-outted-him” stance.

  If the “poor young engineer” loses his job, it’ll be his own fault. How careless and stupid do you have to be to lose a prototype of the new version of one of, arguably, the hottest pieces of technology on the market?

  If you work at Apple, presumably you understand how important the whole new product secrecy thing is. If you haven’t been living under a rock in the last ten years you’ve heard all the hype about Apple rumor web sites getting sued over speculation and how Steve Jobs is very serious about this whole issue.

  It’s one thing to get robbed, or involved in a car crash, or hit by lightening, or something, and losing control of, and track of, this valuable piece of corporate property entrusted to your safekeeping. But using the “It was my birthday, I was drunk” as an excuse? Come on.

  So either this whole ridiculous tale is a publicity stunt on the part of Apple, or the “poor young engineer” is a dumbass. And I, for one, will be glad if his code isn’t used in the iPhone OS.

  • [a random John]

    I think those who’ve showed pity for the guy that lost the phone have backed it up pretty well. There was no particular reason to out him, if he’s going to lose his job, it won’t be because he was outed, and nobody deserves to have this sort of thing follow them for the rest of their life on Google.

    Also consider that we don’t know the identity of the person that sold the phone to Gizmodo and have no way to verify who that person came into possession of the phone. If the phone was in fact outright stolen rather than simply found with no real effort made to return it does the Apple engineer in question really deserve what has happened to him?

    • [doggo]

      Yeah. This whole thing stinks from start to finish. From the Apple employee being careless with company property, the theft of the phone, the buying of the phone, and the outing of the Apple employee. Worst episode evar!

• [fnc]

  Christ, what a bunch of assholes!

• [Rob Beschizza]

  If you think this was planted by Apple, you’re just not paying attention. This is absolutely awful press from Apple’s POV. It drains the traditional, orchestrated reveal of any surprise.

• [ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive]

  I read Gizmodo and Engadget just about every day, but I still fail to see why there is so much hyperventilating going on here. The “revelations” aren’t particularly revelatory. The thing I think is tackiest is that they took apart a phone that didn’t belong to them. I can see poking around to figure out who owned it, but disassembling the thing to photograph its innards is stepping over the line. Just give the thing back and be done with it. It isn’t that entertaining.

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  How exactly are we pronouncing ‘Giz’?

  • [proletariat]

    How exactly are we pronouncing ‘Giz’?

    Like the ooze dripping down any Apple fanboy’s face that believes that this is a) anything but an elaborate PR stunt and b) a legitimate news story.

    In the timeless words of Miss Coco Peru, “You ever get cum in your eye? It BURNS!”

• [Anonymous]

  If instead of an iPhone, someone asked you to buy apparently “lost” keys of a not yet released car model, would you drive the car out of the parking lot, tear it apart just to to publish the pictures, and then, only after being caught doing that, would you decide to return it to the owner?
  That’s disgusting, and this is not the kind of “journalism” we want from Gizmodo.

• [Anonymous]

  Gizmodo did two very not-OK things here:

  1. Ousted the guy who lost the phone (while simultaneously telling Apple to “cut him slack”, though admittedly one guy at Gizmodo was an exception).

  2. Checkbook journalism pertaining to a stolen device. (California legal code says you have to make an attempt to return a lost device, and there’s no fucking way Gizmodo can claim they don’t know who this belonged to, especially after they took it apart.) Bidding on exclusive story rights, esp. with a stolen device is morally wrong.

  I hope Gizmodo gets as much shit over this as possible. They’ve lost all respect in my eyes. Adblock is on for their site, if I ever visit it anymore. Engadget gets my viewership.

• [arikol]

  I agree with most of the above posters. The finder of the phone seems to be an a-hole, gizmodo seems to have very low morals for what seems like not very much of a scoop (it’s an updated smartphone! WOW), and my sympathies go out to the software engineer who lost the phone, and may subsequently lose a job which may possibly even have given him considerable joy and pride.

  Gizmodo is off my reading list for at least a month (as well as getting the full wrath of the adblocker) due to their inconsiderate handling of the matter, I expect technical news and analysis, not headline grabbing TMZ style reporting without thoughts as to the consequences, and will vote with my mouse.

• [a_user]

  TBH I drew the line at not even reading the dopey article, the only thing I’m remotely interested in hearing about is that the engineer who lost the phone wasn’t ruined for life having to live out Groundhog day in the global school playground that is the interwebs.

  As for Apple – part of me thinks they deserve this and more. They are slowly and surely turning me off a brand I’ve used for over 20 years. Watching the Apple/Adobe flash wars gave me dejavu of Microsoft making the wmf just to block Quicktime, it’s not about tech issues it’s about controlling the media and the API for adding ads to OSX. It’s clear where they are going, market dominance and all the really bad customer experience that brings.

• [mr_josh]

  As usual, Andy Ihnatko has great insight in to this:

  http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/2178822,ihnatko-apple-iphone-engadget-gizmodo.article

  • [zio_donnie]

    yep good post indeed.

• [tin robot]

  I’m confused- is buying stolen goods legal over there? They evidently knew the guy who had the phone wasn’t the owner, and hence presumably had no right to sell it, so why is it OK that they bought the thing in the first place?

• [Mark Frauenfelder]

  I’m curious to see what happens here. Is this a fair analogy: you find a cool looking bike leaning against a wall in the hallway of a bar. It’s almost closing time and no one seems to be the owner of it. So you wait until you are the last one in the bar and take the bike home. When you notice that the bike is something special and has been disguised, you sell it for $5000 to a bike technology blog, which dismantles it, determines it to be a prototype made by some well-known bike manufacturer, and publishes photos of it. Have any laws been broken?

  • [Rob Beschizza]

    The guy who stole it is definitely a thief. I can understand why Gizmodo won’t call him that, since it has plausible deniability to maintain, but there’s no reason anyone else has to play dumb.

    • [Mark Frauenfelder]

      I wonder if Gizmodo’s plausible deniability defense will stick if this turns into a criminal matter. A prosecutor could probably make the case that the editors of Gizmodo are savvy enough to know that any Apple prototype offered for sale was hot.

      But like you said, It would be Denton’s greatest dream to be sued, or better yet arrested, for this. Just think of the pageviews!

• [Anonymous]

  Who cares? I’m so over Apple and, whether or not it’s yet another staged leak, this is a waste of time.
  Gizmodo gained little for a fleeting moment, and have painted themself as gutter-press. They’ll be remembered — not for a scoop — but for destroying an engineer’s career for the sake of a few sensationalist clicks.

• [Terry]

  Of course, the other possibility is that Gizmodo is working directly for Apple, who freely and happily gave them the phone. Then they cooked up a convenient fiction to cover up the fact that the folks at Giz have effectively sold their souls to Jobs (not that we didn’t know this already). The bonus is the additional traffic generated by the ‘scandal’.

• [franko]

  i don’t know — something smells fishy, that’s for sure. one thing that is slowly turning me more and more into the “Giz sucks” column is their repeated smug crowing over the whole matter. bottom line to me is this: the original finder should’ve turned it back in to the phone’s owner, or apple. instead he sees dollar signs and gets $5k with zero backlash? he should give the $5k to the poor guy who could lose his job over this. and Giz gets to be all douchy about it and the blogging community gets drool on and on about “journalistic integrity” and “the scoop of the decade”… great…

• [dbarak]

  I’m with the crowd that believes it was a crappy thing to do, from the time the phone was first found until the time Gizmodo last posted something about this fairly unimportant story.

  Talented journalists don’t risk harming someone, in this case by publishing his name, for a story about a gadget. They’re tyros at Gizmodo. They and many bloggers (not all) have too much editorial power too soon in their careers, and often haven’t had the kind of mentoring needed to produce good news reporting.

  Journalism is one of those fields that has a very real obligation to adhere to the highest standards. Journalists that slip up should be held accountable for those mistakes. Mistakes in reporting or in editorial judgment can be forgiven, as long as the “offender” admits the lapse and takes steps to avoid a repeat.

  Some might view bloggers as forging a new path in journalism, but I’m of the belief that you can’t successfully break the rules until you know the rules.

  • [Rob Beschizza]

    “They’re tyros at Gizmodo. They and many bloggers (not all) have too much editorial power too soon in their careers, and often haven’t had the kind of mentoring needed to produce good news reporting.
    …

    Some might view bloggers as forging a new path in journalism, but I’m of the belief that you can’t successfully break the rules until you know the rules.”

    The thing that explains why your former point is even arguable refutes the second point you make here. They are *incredibly* successful at breaking rules. Gizmodo and Engadget attained the audience and attention they have because those following the rules were rarely tempted to break them at all. To look back at the state of consumer electronics reporting in the early years of the decade, it’s astonishing how dry, unappetizing and seemingly captive much of it was. Gadget writing was much less transparent, energetic and interesting than it is now.

    So when extolling the virtues of playing by vaguely-defined rulesets, it’s worth speculating on exactly why the *gadget* beat served as the crucible for commercial blogging enterprises that are now maybe worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

    • [dbarak]

      I’m not saying they’re not successful at breaking the rules, it’s obvious that they are. But are they providing good journalism in the process? I believe they are not. I think if you look at what the original story revealed versus the cost to Mr. Powell, I would say they didn’t practice good journalism, even if it is “new” journalism.

      Basically, they overstepped the bounds of decency while pursuing a relatively unimportant story. If they had been investigating corruption in the government or something where the welfare of people was at stake, then I could agree with stepping on some toes if needed.

      Read All The President’s Men.

      • [Rob Beschizza]

        Journalism is publishing something that someone doesn’t want you to publish. This so rarely happens in gadget blogs that I just can’t take it seriously when people look at actual bona-fide news scoops like this and say that the way they went about it is evidence of bad journalism. It’s like saying the only live horse in the race is a loser because it’s lame.

        The objection does demonstrate the limits of the subject matter as a journalistic enterprise, however. And if the only way to go about it is either by engaging with PR or with a checkbook, there’s no much point fantasizing about less compromising ways to find stories until someone out there actually does it.

        The best gadget journalism IMO is hacking stuff (the golden age of iphone hacking at TUAW should be praised more often, but everyone covers it well), stories that focus on creativity enabled by gadgets (x made with y — I really think we’re on the top shelf of this ourselves), and high-quality analysis. There’s not a lot of the latter, but Joel and Gruber are always great, even when they talk bollocks.

        • [Stooge]

          Journalism is publishing something that someone doesn’t want you to publish. This so rarely happens in gadget blogs that I just can’t take it seriously when people look at actual bona-fide news scoops like this and say that the way they went about it is evidence of bad journalism. It’s like saying the only live horse in the race is a loser because it’s lame.

          Glibly asserting that the ends justify the means is a pretty tired cliché, Rob.

        • [agraham999]

          Rob,

          “Journalism is publishing something that someone doesn’t want you to publish.”

          Really? So…there are no rules to that game? I respectfully disagree. I guess all the sites like TMZ are journalism now?

          To me, “journalism,” whether it takes risks or not…or pays for access to a story or not…comes down to some basic questions including how does this story I’m breaking serve my audience, and by pushing the story, who benefits and who gets hurt?

          This story didn’t serve the public…it broke some specs on a device that we all knew was coming…and then Giz took it further by telling the salacious story about some programmer who got “drunk” and lost the device…making the story of how they got it pure sensationalism…and we don’t know if he was drunk…all we know is he was there and had some drinks…so now they’ve colored him in even a worse light.

          The scoop wasn’t the story here…the scoop was the story behind the story…and to make matters worse…they hung this poor kid out to dry who did what so many of us have done and that’s misplace something.

          Good journalism is providing a critical eye and balanced reporting on a topic…the problem with Giz is they took a page out of the Gawker playbook and went right for the juicy aspects…and took great delight in being able to fuck Apple after Apple has “controlled” access for so long. They are loving every second of it…and in the pursuit of that desire they have completely shit all over this poor kid who becomes a victim regardless of whether or not Apple fires him.

          That to me isn’t journalism. Giz could have simply taken the photos, found out the specs, put it in a box and shipped it back to Apple…instead they went on this “fuck you Apple” parade which took this programmer and thrust him in the spotlight for all to see and mock…and that is just disgusting and why I won’t go to another Denton property ever again…and I generally like those properties.

          But this was not journalism.

          The reason I come to Boing Boing is that you often put your neck out there…and if it gets cut off because you were wrong…you do the right thing and admit it. More importantly the moral compass of this blog is something I’ve always respected because you always try to take the high ground. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you push something to hurt someone simply in the name of pageviews.

          The problem with Giz and Denton is that they were wrong and instead of just putting it to bed and moving on they are doubling down and defending their actions…which cannot be defended

        • [dbarak]

          Actually, the methods a reporter uses to dig up the news does in fact reflect the quality of the journalism. Checkbook journalism calls into question the motivation of the individuals on the receiving end of the payout.

          Look to see how many people on the various forums around the web question whether this was planted by Apple or not. Regardless of the veracity of the story, Gizmodo’s trustworthiness has suffered.

          (As a side note, I’m a former newspaper reporter, business columnist, copy editor and photographer.)

        • [remmelt]

          It’s like saying the only live horse in the race is a loser because it’s lame.

          The horse is still lame though.

          I guess that’s the point of the entire discussion. We can conflate it with freedom of the press and moral duty to inform the public but to me, that’s just a smoke screen.

      • [Rob Beschizza]

        “a relatively unimportant story”

        On the gadget beat — Gizmodo’s entire reason for existing — very little could be more important than scooping an unannounced Apple product.

        “Gadgets is a trivial subject” doesn’t change anything. Criticism is exactly as meaningful as praise, proportional to how important you think the subject is.

        • [dbarak]

          I should clarify – the story is unimportant relative to the potential damage done to a person’s career. Aside from the legalities and ethics of how they obtained the phone, exposing the name of the unfortunate Apple employee wasn’t necessary for ANY reason. Nobody’s livelihood or life was saved by running the story. Not only was Mr. Powell’s career possibly damaged, but there’s a good chance that Gizmodo may have sabotaged itself by the time this situation plays out. I know that I won’t be visiting Gizmodo any time soon – too many other sites can provide the same information. I’ll continue visiting my other regular Gawker sites until they start playing these same games.

• [Marshall]

  I fail to see how a non-technical dissection of the updated version of a common smartphone ranks as the “gadget-blogging scoop of the decade”. If Apple’s sheeple fans ever had a tempest in a teapot moment, this is it.

• [Anonymous]

  When news about a new phone is so important as to justify the way that Gizmodo went about any of this there is something wrong.

  I happen to disagree that their outing the phone was a good thing and agree that their outing the engineer was bad.

  I personally hope criminal charges are brought against the people involved and they get time in jail.

  Lives were not at risk if this information was not revealed. It was purely an example of why Gizmodo should be removed from your bookmarks not any reason to laud their behavior. If other sites take this same path they will be removed from my bookmarks as well.

  I don’t mind the occasional shot of some hint at the next great thing but thievery and paying for stolen items doesn’t have a place in where I stand.

  If this is indeed the next iPhone all anticipation is gone. All of the build up smashed. No service was provided to the reader except to point out the poor judgment of the publisher and “journalist”.

  I won’t soon forget their behavior or that of the others involved and it has forever tainted my view of gizmodo and their parent company.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    it has forever tainted my view of gizmodo and their parent company.

    I never really looked to Gawker Media for moral leadership.

    • [dbarak]

      I don’t see how that implies Anonymous looks to Gawker for moral leadership. But that’s just me.

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        The idea that it’s now tainted contains within it the idea that it was, at some point, untainted. I’m inclined to the belief that Gawker Media is just made of taint.

    • [Jack]

      Actually, in their early days when Liz Spiers was the pioneering editor they were really well written, had a good POV and was only snarky when it was called for.

      Now, it’s just a page-view whore of a site.

• [Anonymous]

  Apple requiring the finder of the phone, WHO CALLED APPLE to report it lost, to upload them pictures of it, is ridiculous – he is doing them a favor to begin with.

  They could have confirmed by simply asking him to read off the serial number or something. Apple had the power to kill it remotely in the first place, after all.

  • [Anonymous]

    If the thing had a serial number it could have been taken to any Apple Store to find the owner, or a simple phone call. But it ws a super sekrit prototype that isn’t in that system.

    He could have contacted Grey via Facebook perhaps.I’m sure Grey knew it was missing.

• [EH]

  As long as nobody’s talking about the new HTC models introduced yesterday, I think we can chalk this one up to “Mission Accomplished.”

  • [theLadyfingers]

    Heh, Android’s for porn.”

• [straponego]

  I’ve returned a few phones to their owners, including some quite nice ones. I’ve had one returned to me. From what I’ve seen at bars, most people do the right thing in this scenario. So one more for giz-are-dicks.

  But I’ve also heard of one case where the finders had no intention of returning the phone, and mocked the owner when he called. Sadly for them, people knew who they were… I guess it got quite ugly. So to the finder’s keepers crowd, bear in mind that theft can be very, very bad for your health.

  And, as other have noted, there’s nothing at all surprising in this “scoop”. The only item that wasn’t totally obvious was the specific resolution of the new display, but even that is right about what you’d expect.

  I’ll be quite interested to hear from those who trash Android because the iPhone’s single resolution is… was… simpler to program for. The multiple resolution problem, varying CPU problem has never been seen before! It’s impossible to solve!

  Well, now you have iPhone, iPad, and iPhone 4. OMG, all the developers will surely fall on their backs and pee all over themselves in confusion, wailing at the loss of the one perfect, eternally invariable platform!

  • [Anonymous]

    Thank you! I have been harping on this forever. Android apps work just fine on a huge number of handsets. Devs do need to do some extra work but its hardly the showstopper it is made out to be by iFans. Now that they’re in the same boat we’ll see if they keep crowing about how great a single monolithic unchanging platform is.

• [a_user]

  Gizmodo raided by police:

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8645884.stm

  “Police in California have seized computers belonging to the editor of a gadget blog which was involved in the purchase of an iPhone prototype. ”

• [ikoino]

  Expect any iPhone to get lost or stolen: http://bit.ly/bckk9H
  If Apple’s policy is to let prototypes off campus, then expect shrinkage.

• [theboredom]

  So they felt it was kosher to out the poor guy who left the phone in the bar but the person that sold them the phone is still anonymous? Yuck.

• [Anonymous]

  Oh jeez, what’s this, some kind of small portable fusion generator. I thought it was a HP business calculator. Oh look, it generates 12 Gigawatts of controlled current with the addition of a few drops of regular water. That’s probably technology mankind hasn’t seen before. Well, hmm. I think I better just toss this in that lost-and-found milkcrate at the bar just before I pick up my laundry.

• [Anonymous]

  And it was such an amazing scoop! Apparently, the new version of a popular and expensive consumer item will have some new features!

• [Anonymous]

  I don’t have a complicated philosophical, legal or moral argument about what the thief did or what Giz did, I just think it has the familiar smell of as-hole, which makes me think that one or more as-holes were involved. A gentleman would have called the guy up and handed the phone over without fanfare.

  If nothing else, I think this shows a cleave between bb and giz… with coolhunters & public intellectuals on one side and snarky data sharks on the other. If bb had paid for that phone and humiliated the engineer by name [there but for grace go I], I would certainly and always think less of bb.

• [Anonymous]

  Yes it was illegal by California law. If it had been corporate espionage, where someone was paid to steal the phone, would you say it would be pointless for Apple to prosecute? If you say this is different, then you are stretching the boundaries of Journalistic ethics to make it above the law in the name of the story. All the Apple haters can say what they want, but I imagine a batch of Apple stock holders would like very much to see Denton held accountable for giving trade secrets to the competitors, and for probable damage to iphone sales as even more people now wait for the known improvements.

  There is a reason for trade secrets. I know in the info wants to be free atmosphere of Boing Boing (which I largely buy into) trade secrets may be a quaint idea, but in the real world they matter and they effect profits.

  Oh boo hoo, it’s Apple and they can afford it or deserve it, right. No, not really. Denton is a Brit tabloid make a buck guy, and doing something so over the line as publishing photos of a tear down puts this whole thing into a whole different level of illegal. This is not spotting and photographing a proto of a new Audi in the wild, this is corporate espionage done by fiat and I will be surprised if Apple, with the full backing of other tech companies, doesn’t go after Gizmodo for substantial damages as a result.

• [Alviel]

  I work in product development and if I came across a competitor’s prototype in such a manner and used it to my advantage my company would face legal action as it is unethical business practice. Perfect example was in 2006 when a 3 people, one being a Coke employee, tried to sell Pepsi Coke’s formula. Pepsi turned them in because acquiring such information is illegal and Pepsi would have been sued!!! What Gizmodo did is illegal. Gizmodo did not report the story for the good of the people, ie this not investigative journalism exposing some hidden criminal activity, they did it for their own monetary and corporate gain and didn’t think twice about screwing a young engineer over. They are an evil small company, and I’ve removed their feed, I will no longer read them if that is what they will stoop to,

  What should they have done? They should called Apple, given the phone back. Apple, if it was smart, could have then rewarded them with an early scoop on the iPhone. A moral win-win for both companies. Apple could also have left them high and dry, but at least Gizmodo would have done the right thing and could have reported the incident after the new iphone came out and shown Apple’s colors. Either way Gizmodo had the opportunity to do the right thing, and instead just proved that even though they are small they are as morally corrupt as some of the big guys. Gizmodo is not, nor every will be, respectable journalism.

• [piminnowcheez]

  I don’t have anything to say about the ethics of checkbook journalism or the guy who found the phone. But the outing of the engineer is just an unconscionable, pointless act of cruelty and the whole stack of Denton web properties have been permanently purged from my browser.

  Whatever the merits of the phone story, what, exactly was gained by naming and posting pictures of the poor bastard who lost the phone? The notion that this is somehow going to protect his job doesn’t even parse: even at a non-secrecy-crazed company, something like this could easily be a firing offense. Unless Apple retools its entire culture, is there any way it could NOT fire this guy and send the message that nothing really so bad comes out of revealing an unannounced product? Now, instead of just losing his job, he may be unemployable in the industry, and he’ll certainly be known until the end of his days as the dumbass who lost the new iPhone. Given the choice, I’m willing to bet he’d be just fine with losing his job quietly and moving on with his career. To some degree, we all carry the consequences of our youthful dumbassery with us through our lives, but Gizmodo made sure this kid’s was tattooed right on his forehead.

  What WAS gained, what Denton and Diaz sold him out for, was whatever additional page hits beyond the traffic already there for the phone scoop were scored off of gawkers at the human spectacle offered as the cherry on top. What an execrable, motherless sociopath it must take to choose to harm someone for so little gain.

  And if the outing weren’t bad enough, the adolescent sneering of Diaz’ article and Denton’s public statements/tweets just turns my stomach. Seriously — Nick Denton impugning the integrity of Andy Ihnatko!? I just broke a blood vessel in my head.

• [Matthew]

  I don’t know if Apple has a plan to work with Verizon or not – but the fact that there was a SIM slot on the device lost/found does not even remotely “mean we’re stuck with AT&T for another gen.” No one expects Apple to DROP AT&T if they make an agreement with Verizon – so there will definitely be a GSM device (with a SIM card/slot) – even if there is also a CDMA device (without a SIM) for Verizon

• [kaffeen]

  The engineer deserves to be fired. I do not mean to sound heartless, because I understand the human side of this as well. The problem is that human sides of things do not always apply to work/business. If you make a mistake at work, you will be penalized. The severity of that mistake will dictate the severity of the penalty. In this instance, this mistake was particularly egregious.

  As a software engineer myself, I can tell you I have signed numerous confidentiality and security contracts for various companies. Each is very specific and human resources makes sure you are aware of the consequences for breaches of security or confidentiality. Nowhere in those agreements does it ever say “if you are stupid and drunk and make a really bad decision, you will be forgiven”. Does that sound cold? Probably. But I can tell you what, if I owned Apple I would expect the same things as every other software company. It is good business, practical, and very logical when you think about it. I can only imagine to what extent you sign your life away at Apple. I would never work there because of that (and I have turned down companies because of their job requirements).

  Basically, if you agree to work somewhere like Apple, you live with the consequences for mistakes. It does not matter if they are “human” or otherwise.

  Having said this, it is a crime that Gizmodo outed him. This should be a private matter between employer and employee. It is very possible he will never find another high profile job opportunity because of this. Not impossible that he can overcome, but more more difficult. I hope Gizmodo is sued out of business for this reason alone.

• [Jack]

  First off, I was quite “Meh…” about the leaked prototype news when I first heard it. I work in tech. I understand tech. But gadget OCD I don’t get. But whatever. It was news for a certain group.

  Second, I’ve grown more and more weary of Gawker. What started out as a wry and well written look at the NYC media world has turned into a snarky, mean and quite childish blog that makes TMZ look legit.

  Third, their decision to OUT the person who lost the coveted iPhone after they raked in a disgusting amount of traffic is what I would say in Yiddish is being a goniff. Being a completely amoral pig of a move. They got the traffic, they got the publicity and they had to destroy a poor techs reputation for what reason? From my experience and understanding doing something like that was most likely an “executive decision” made by Gawker’s ever petty pub Nick Denton himself. Horrible move.

  This all adds up to something quite simple: Gawker is completely worthless as a source of news to me. Like anyone here cares, but in this age of print dying and new media blooming Gawker is in a position to set a standard. And what do they do? Attempt to go as low as Perez Hilton.

  Disgusting and inexcusable.

• [Anonymous]

  I think Giz’s reputation as “real journalism” went out the window the day they ran around a tech fair with a universal remote, shutting off displays as a prank.

  This is both the blessing and the curse of tech blogs like Gizmodo. By breaking the rules, they’re publishing some pretty entertaining/interesting stuff – like the aforementioned video or paying to get their hands on something Apple doesn’t want people to see.

  But, knowing they do this stuff, can I say that I totally trust what they write? Probably not – if they’re cool with paying what’s basically stolen property to get people to read their site, then how do I know they’re not getting paid off for other types of coverage – or non coverage?

• [Ichabod]

  I read the Giz article, and it sounded like the guy who found the phone tried many times/ways to report his finding the phone. It sounds like he did his level best to return it. Failing that he sold it to Giz. What’s wrong with that?

  • [bwaterhouse]

    It’s probably a felony.

  • [styrofoam]

    If he knew who lost it, he didn’t try very hard to return it.
    I can believe that calling Apple tech support didn’t get him very far.
    The bar probably had a lost and found.
    The engineer whose facebook page you looked at and noted enough to pass along to your paid sponsor? Maybe you could have looked that page up and sent him a message. that’s not exactly rocket science, but it would have paid less.

• [Alviel]

  Too funny teapot, right on

• [styrofoam]

  Let’s be clear- apple knew who lost the phone, regardless of the story. (Unless he smuggled it out of the lab on the down low.) If he was going to be fired for losing a prototype, that could have happened without the story.

  However, this guy now has a pit in his stomach the size of Texas. Putting the poor guy in the pillory means he’s not going to get a decent night’s sleep for weeks. (if not more. Even if Apple assures him he can still have his job, it’s still a terrible thing for him. I still get sick to my stomach thinking of “my most embarrassing moments” years after the fact- and they’re certainly not anywhere near this proportion.

  I’m still how trying to fathom that buying something from somebody that’s obviously not the owner is legal.

  To me, paid journalism would mean bribing an employee in the know to induce a leak.

  In the case of the found phone, I imagine it working something like black-box engineering. Somebody calls to sell a story to you. You pay them some money, and they give you all the details they can about the phone. You offer to pay them more money if they can provide pictures. More money yet if there’s pictures of the inside. More money if they’ll exactly measure it and photo it in loving 3d.

  Money trading hands along with an actual object- not information about the object- is where things get dicey for me really fast. So best of luck with that.

• [zyodei]

  I think it represents a triumph of Apple PR that people give a shit in the first place.

• [ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive]

  Gizmodo just posted pictures of the phone spread out disassembled in a million pieces across a desk. To me, that clearly steps over the line. When someone finds something that has been lost, it’s one thing to look inside to see if you can find the owner’s name. It’s another thing to totally tear the object apart. The person who found the phone knew the owner’s name from the very beginning from his Facebook ID, but he didn’t contact him. Instead, he sold the phone to Gizmodo. Gizmodo knew the true owner but didn’t return it until they had a chance to tear it all apart.

  If I find your wallet, is it OK for me to sell it to someone else to take photos of all your credit cards and post them on the web before giving them back? If I find your stolen car, can I disassemble the differential to see how it works before I call to tell you I found it?

  Gizmodo shouldn’t be so proud of their “scoop”. It smells like poop.

• [arikol]

  I think that upon reflection we can all agree that Gizmodo is a tech blog, so this kind of news is important to them.

  That doesn’t change the fact that getting a story in this way is immoral at best, illegal at worst.
  It also does not change the quite obvious fact that they screwed the pooch on how the presented it. The outing of the engineer moved this firmly from a questionable piece of reporting (see, I managed to avoid the word journalism there) down to gutter reporting.
  Gizmodo’s income comes from pageviews and adclicks, they got a bunch extra due to this news snippet, I will show them that I disagree with them by not going there anymore. Maybe this will be a short term gain / long term loss.. that would at least show them that people don’t want gadget news at any cost. Gadget news is supposed to be FUN, not firing up my sympathy channels and have me question the morality of the website.

  BoingBoing often tackles sensitive issues (much more sensitive than a gadget blog) and does so with bravery AND sensitivity. Not everything is perfectly done, but it seems like the writers here actually care. This is why I visit BB without ad-blocking. Because you care.

  You just DO NOT intentionally cause harm to an individual in your reporting.

• [Anonymous]

  OH MY GOD THEY BROKE THE LAW!

  I bet they drove over the speed limit when they went pick up the phone too. God forbid, they might have even jaywalked.

  Good press or bad press, it is still press. I can guarantee Gizmodo made back the 5k they paid for the phone within an hour on advertising revenue. While you all are acting tough on the internet I can assure you they are laughing all the way to the bank.

  If you spent half the energy tackling consequential issues of real gravity that you spent attacking some tech outlet on the internet, the world would be a better place.

• [agraham999]

  I feel this case this reflects more on ethics than journalism and there is no way to spin this as Giz being just cool rule breakers…

  1. Several months ago I found a cell phone in a parking lot. I opened the SIM card to see who the provider was, walked over to a ATT store, and turned in the phone. I didn’t peruse the contents of the phone…I didn’t call anyone from the phone book, I didn’t browse their Facebook stuff or violate their privacy in any way.

  2. The guy who found said prototype was a snoop and a jerk for looking through the phone. If you find an iPhone you can take it to ATT and they will find the owner…you don’t snoop through their phone.

  3. He realized he had something special and we hear he “claimed” to call Apple and Apple did nothing about it. So what you do is go to your local Apple store, find the manager, give it to them. Or, email Steve Jobs. Or, just keep calling. You don’t sell said phone to a site.

  4. Giz seems like it is trying to cover their asses, but let’s face it…they handled this whole thing about as well as Engadget handled the iPhone rumor that knocked about $4 billion off of Apple’s stock valuation (and turned out to be complete bs). In Giz’s case it was ethically wrong to purchase an item they knew belonged to Apple. They can try to defend what they did…but the fact remains that the moment they pulled out a check book, they knew the decision was shady…a found item not returned to the owner (when they knew who the owner was) is theft. They had no right to buy it or keep it.

  5. The classiest thing would have been to buy the phone for $5k and immediately return it to Apple sans story.

  6. Regardless, this was just low class. If anyone found Nick Denton or Brian Chen’s phone at a bar, dug though all their personal information, called them, but since they didn’t answer fast enough decided to sell said phone to some type of site like TMZ…they’d be all up in arms about the violation of privacy.

  You can say what you want about Apple’s secrecy…I won’t defend them…but in this case I find it hard to defend Giz at all.

• [Eric Ragle]

  I said my piece of at Gizmodo and I’ll take time to share it here.

  1. I have no problem with how or why they went about getting the phone. The phone is the story and at one point I remember journalism being about the story.

  2. I have no problem with their scoop. Good for them.

  3. I have a HUGE problem with them outing the poor sap who lost this phone. Not only that, but they ran posts earlier today describing how it was his birthday when he lost it. In other words, they outed him and then they rubbed salt in the wound.

  I know the world isn’t all sunshine and daisies and I don’t think I’m being unrealistic in thinking that people should act in a humane fashion. So, I don’t read Giz any more. They won’t miss my page views because I’m sure they’ve picked up more loyal readers as a result of this. I just really hate it for the poor guy who lost that phone.

• [tuckels]

  The thing that strikes me as most surprising is that the guy who found it managed to find out the name of the owner of the phone, and yet decided not to contact him. He claims to have waited around the pub to see if the poor sod was going to come back, but seemed to neglect the exceedingly simple step of contacting him through facebook. The guy who found it obviously knew what he found was important (once he removed the fake 3gs case) since he got in contact with a gadget blog about it.
  Gizmodo’s publishing of the apple guy’s name adds nothing to how their story reads, nor adds any more credibility to the story, since no one knows (knew) who he was.
  What it did do was get his name to every tech-interested institution with web access.
  Should he end up getting fired by apple, he’s going to be hard pressed to shake the “guy who lost the iPhone prototype” label that may as well now be affixed to the top of his resumé.

• [Anonymous]

  Hmm… I want to hear from Rob and the other boing boing writers what they’d do if they got the opportunity to buy this thing. (or get it, not sure if giz actually confirmed they bought it) (also, keep in mind we’re not so sure about how much attempt was made to return it, what the exact circumstances were under which it was lost, etc.)

• [zikman]

  god bless joel johnson.

• [Anonymous]

  aren’t these the same douchebags that went around a trade show ruining demos with a tv-b-gone?

  Class acts, they are.

• [Tenlow]

  Everyone is overreacting on all sides here. First off, theft requires you know, theft, for it to be theft. Nobody stole anything from anyone here. Apple never reported the phone stolen, or even lost for that matter. I have not seen anything that says the guy who lost the phone reported it lost or stolen to anyone other than apple (which I am assuming because of the remote bricking). The guy who found the phone is a douche, make no mistake. But to say anyone is guilty of theft is a bit of a stretch. How long does something have to be lost before picking it up is considered theft? Until it becomes lost, it’s abandoned. How can you know that the owner of the phone didn’t want to leave it there until you ask? They contacted apple and reported the phone as found, after paying $5k for it mind you, and returned it as soon as apple identified it as belonging to them. Other than the fact that the letter came from one of apple’s lawyers, there was nothing threatening in the notice. For someone as lawsuit happy as apple, this in itself is news. Basically, they paid $5k for some pictures of a new phone while being good samaritans in a roundabout way. Outing the dev who lost the phone is also kinda douchey, but i can at least see it as an attempt to verify the authenticity of the phone itself. If he was going to get fired, being outed in the press wasn’t going to change anything. If he wasn’t going to get fired they can take this and say “look, everyone makes mistakes and we care about the little guy too” or some lame PR crap to make everyone feel good.

  The hype is a little hard to take. People are going to the extreme calling for giz to be prosecuted for breaking the biggest story of the year in that niche. I hate to say it, but I would expect nothing less from boingboing (minus the outing) given the same circumstances.

  • [robbersdog]

    No-one is guilty of theft? At what point did the phone stop belonging to someone? Theft is taking something that isn’t yours without permission. This describes exactly what happened here. Just because the phone wasn’t in the owner’s pocket doesn’t mean it stoped belonging to them. The person who took it knew it wasn’t their’s to take and so they stole it.

    Using the term abandoned in this case is just bending reason too much. Abandoned implies that it’s no longer wanted. That it may belong to someone, but they’ve abandoned it because they don’t want ownership anymore. This clearly isn’t the case. Someone forgetting to pick up their phone is not justification for someone else stealing it.

  • [Anonymous]

    “Theft” is what the law defines as theft, and from what I’ve read the law in California says you have to try and return it to the owner. If you can’t, you have to turn it over to the police.

    If you don’t, the law calls it theft.

• [dougr650]

  “He also kills another rumor doing the rounds–this being that the whole thing was a controlled leak–and repeats the point that access journalism sucks.”

  Really? I agree that he attempted to kill that rumor, but if you read Johnson’s post, the case against it is pretty flimsy. In fact, most of his argument seems to rest on the vague hope that access journalism does indeed suck, and therefore, checkbook journalism must prevail. I think it’s clear that Apple permitted this leak and they allowed Gizmodo to pay $5k to pretend like they broke some amazing story. Gizmodo is definitely making more on page views than whatever they paid for the stupid phone. So if they want to believe they’re engaging in some groundbreaking piece of investigative journalism, they’re entitled to promote that view, but the circumstances by which they acquired the phone in the first place strongly suggest otherwise.

• [Anonymous]

  Will it blend?

• [robbersdog]

  This story isn’t about some big important issue of human rights, it’s about getting one over on a successful business. It’s a phone, the next rich boy’s toy. If this was about a human rights disaster, about illegal torture in the army or child trafficing for prostitution then yeah, the means are justified.

  However:
  “Also, those fantasizing in public about someone prosecuting Gizmodo should put it away. It’s disgusting.”

  As soon as you tell me that theft is justified when it allows you to get one over on someone because they’re successful, and then tell me to think it isn’t is disgusting I have just one thought:

  Fck y. Fck Gzmd nd fck bngbng. Y’v jst lst ll crdblty wth m. Wth ll th fntstc rprtng y lt d fr rl, srs sss t strt cnfsng nn-stry bt th ftrs f nw phn vryn knw bt nywy wth rl jrnlsm y’v lst t.

  I hope Apple takes this straight to the courts.

  • [J France]

    I apparently care enough to read 108 comments on the matter, and I can honestly say – draw a line, right above what I’ve got to say.

    You’ve nailed it for me, I was totally into the journalistic angle for the first 50 or so, but you’ve classed the debate perfectly.

    It’s a damned toy, a toy that’s popular.
    The morals before this guy realised it wasn’t anything but a 3GS were shitty, and it just got woeful from there.