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Gizmodo Not Welcome at 2010 WWDC
recoiledsnake writes "Gizmodo is reporting that Apple has refused to answer its request to attend the company's big Worldwide Developers Conference keynote this Monday. Apple's move to ban Gizmodo seems a direct repercussion of Apple's prototype leak by Gizmodo and subsequent actions of Apple to get the prototype back. Meanwhile, Gizmodo said that it would resort to a live blog to cover the event in case of the ban. This comes a few days after San Mateo County authorities announced that a 'special master' had been appointed to assist in the search of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen's belongings: goods seized as part of a police investigation into the disappearance (and Gizmodo acquisition) of one of Apple's prototype iPhones. It's the very device that's rumored to be announced at the Monday keynote."
I mean, it was quite clear from Steve's reaction during D8 that he regards it as having been stolen (and CA law would seem to agree, at least IMHO). Why the hell would he give free passes to the people who he thinks stole from his company ?
If Giz really wanted to get in, they could pay for a ticket like everyone else, if necessary getting someone not-so-in-the-news to buy it. Nothing Apple could do about that...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Gizmodo has shown in the past that they are too immature to be allowed attend these types of events.
So ... Gizmodo can't provide news at the WWDC after obvious events previously, so they're plugging link-bait about their inability to provide news.
And this is news - how?
Why, it's Gizmodo news! But of course! (Get your news that's only news to Gizmodo, on Gizmodo!)
This is the same outfit that thought it would be an amusing prank to show up at CES with a universal TV power-off remote, which they used to interrupt demonstrations, presentations and meetings. I wouldn't blame anyone for banning them from a trade show. Apple just has more specific reasons than most for barring them.
I hope you were joking.
This kind of shit is par for the course today, and it's the reason it is hard to trust journalists these days. Most so-called reviews out there - especially larger sites - are essentially paid-for ads. It's a rare day that a bad game or bad product gets panned like it deserves, because the editors are always worried about (a) the company pulling their ad dollars, (b) the company pulling product support away, or (c) the company launching some frivolous lawsuit just to burn up cash.
Remember the Kane & Lynch Eidos/Gamespot fiasco? Ever watched Farhad Manjoo at Slate change his tune to whatever Apple/Google want him to say on a given day, even if they were saying the opposite last week?
How about Rockstar's bullshit recently at a reviewer who didn't like Red Dead Redemption? I wonder how many people Rockstar paid off to get the "critical acclaim" for their boring western sandbox... er litterbox gameplay.
If Gizmodo pissed in my Cherios - I wouldn't invite them to my party either.
PLEASE never call these narcissistic twits journalists again. Journalism is based on research, fact finding, source checking and has a goal to keep a check and balance on the democratic process. Agreed, much of the media today fails this. But in a spectrum of "news" Gizmodo "stories" are on par with Bat Boy in the Enquirer. Their usage of the English language is barely a step above txt speak while their maturity is nowhere above that of a third grade child.
Coverup? Coverup would be if Apple invited no news outlets and kept everything hush and squelched any reporting which Apple has done in the past. I think the word you are looking for is "retribution".
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I agree in general that a journalistic site should not fear biting the hand that feeds them, for the sake of integrity.
But Gizmodo has already proven that they do not have integrity. They fenced stolen property and then attempted blackmail/extortion on Apple, very very recently. It's not some 10 year old grudge, the fallout of this shit is still happening. This sort of behaviour really should not be condoned, and nobody should expect it to be.
Rockstar and Eidos just didn't like the reviews, though. Gizmodo actually committed a felony.
It's not that Apple didn't like the press, it's that Gizmodo stole their property.
Denying press credentials to any legitimate news organization, which is Gizmodo sure as hell is, is rotten PR at the very least.
I think that under the circumstances, the only bad PR Apple is going to receive over excluding Gizmodo is going to come from those sources that are always looking for bad things to say about the company no matter what. More rational people, even those who may not completely agree with Apple's decision, will at least understand where it's coming from.
As for Gizmodo being a legitimate news organization, well, that's debatable, isn't it? IMHO, legitimate news organizations do not pay for stories in the manner that Giz did, especially when it involves the purchase of stolen property. And, yes, according to California law, the iPhone prototype was stolen. I'm not even going to entertain any debate about that.
This ain't rocket surgery.
They are welcome, they just don't get their tickets gratis. If they bought a ticket they would be at the keynote. You can construct whatever narrative you like. Either this is apple imposing their iron fist on dissent or this is Gizmodo getting their comeuppance for buying stolen property and attempting to extort apple for it. In both cases apple (presumably) has the right to refuse to extend a welcome to a press organization. That may be unseemly, but it is true.
I don't think either party comes out looking good, but Gizmodo is really milking it. You bought a leaked phone, attempted to get confirmation that the phone was real to get a scoop, and you got burnt. Oh well. that shit happens. If you don't want to get burnt, don't play with fire. This isn't the pentagon or the white house, where some public service is gained through continued access by all parties--Apple is not a government agency. They are a private company. We may feel (As I do) that Apple SHOULD allow press to attend regardless of their orientation, but apple is under no mandate to do so. If we feel strongly enough, we should refuse to buy the products and/or own the stock on the basis of our reservations. Beyond that, we don't have much sway.
IMHO, legitimate news organizations do not pay for stories in the manner that Giz did, especially when it involves the purchase of stolen property.
Sure they do. They even pay worse criminals and occasionally keep their identities secret from the authorities, preventing justice.
This stuff happens when you leave things like secret prototypes lying around Starbucks; it's not the news media's fault that they write about it. It is by way of being their job.
It's their fault they do not immediately return it or hand it over to authorities. Instead they chose to illegally dissect and did not return it. Their holding onto someone else's property for their own purposes is obviously criminal conversion, if they actually did that.
Losing press credentials should be the worst of their worries. After Apple is done with them, they will be lucky if Apple does not decide to pursue having gizmodo shut down over this.
Wow, the old "Apple is for gay people" joke.
The 1980's called. They want their humour back.
But congratulations on being a homophobic bigot - your parents must be so proud.
Any real journalist knows their defining characteristic is integrity. Everybody just wants to overlook that when it comes to Gizmodo though. Integrity means you don't go to a trade show and disrupt the demonstrations of companies that paid lots of money to be there. Integrity means you don't even offer, let alone actually pay for a stolen device. Failing that, integrity means you simply give the device back when asked for it, you don't try to use it as a bargaining chip. Integrity means you don't harm members of the public for no good reason.
Now, let's get into common sense. If journalists are to be the protectors and the propagators of truth, discernment and common sense are two of their most valuable tools. Common sense tells you that you don't attempt to acquire trade secrets of a company that has less than three months ago sent you a letter to cease and desist attempts to acquire said trade secrets. Common sense tells you that if you want greater access to a company, and someone offers to sell you something valuable belonging to said company, you buy it, then return it to said company without making a story about it. Common sense tells you if you do purchase a device that is likely to be stolen in California, pay no more than $799 for it, thereby avoiding any implicit acknowledgement that the device is worth enough to you, to constitute grand theft in the eyes of the law.
So who thinks these guys are journalists? People who don't care about what a journalist is supposed to be.
cat
The "news" outfit that's willing to pay for an iPhone prototype of murky origins is whining because they don't want to pay for a WWDC ticket?
Oh please. Because they thought it might have belonged to IBM or Microsoft?
Or a Chinese knockoff company.
Here is a funny fact though. Apple is only 10% of the market share for computers and 25% for mobile phones. Why the fuck do they get so much coverage?
Here is a funny fact though. Tesla motors is less than 1% of the market share for cars. Why the fuck do they get so much coverage?
In case you're unclear on the issue, the press doesn't portion out news coverage based upon market share. They cover what is new, innovative, strange, controversial, and otherwise of interest to the public.
The majority of people don't fucking care.
The majority of people care a lot more about a cool new toy from Apple or Google (even one with very small market share) than they do about the latest boring device from Nokia or Dell. Apple is a lot more innovative and more savvy about marketing and that draws the interest of the public. Seriously, would you be happy if the press wrote 5 times the number of articles about HP computers as they do about Apple in order to reflect market share? What would they write and why would anyone care? HP releases another middle of the road PC in no way different than a thousand other boring PCs. And umm, we just though you should all know that, or something. Tune in tomorrow and for our exciting coverage of HP's use of off the shelf Windows OS and how it is exactly like the ones from five other companies and in no way interesting.
It seems like an odd moral system that allows purchasing stolen property, but avoids participation in marketing.
Then again it seems like an odd moral system of so many on slashdot that support the thief rather than the victim.
Remember when some tool from Gizmodo went around CES turning off all the TVs and displays with a master IR remote? Legit news organization my ass. I wouldn't want them around my event either. They're the sort of immature douchebags that would set off a fire alarm in the middle of the presentation just so they could get some hits by posting about it.
Didn't the guy who found it made a reasonable effort by calling up Apple, asking them if they want it back?
No "reasonable effort" would have been to notify the establishment at which the phone was lost that they had in their possession a 'found' phone.
If they had made that minimal effort or... done the legally correct action of simply *GIVING* the phone to the barkeeper in the first place then the next morning the Apple employee would have dropped by before work and picked up the phone he forgot on the bar.
Taking it home and not telling anyone isn't making a minimal effort.
If I can BMW's customer service line and tell them I found a super secret BMW prototype the guy in India isn't going to be trained or have any method of getting a hold of the CEO than you or I. Apple is so insular that most Apple employees don't even know what the new iPhone looks like.
Quite likely you'll find that the localised copy is written in one place by the employees of one company, and that the advertising is sold (and revenue received) by another company. True, both companies are themselves owned by an uber-company, but the system is designed to reduce conflicts of interest between the editorial side of the publication and the advertising side of the publication.
If you're in a "small country", then it's fairly possible that the two companies are based in different countries. The local editorial content (reviews, consumer advocacy, blah) is generated by a fairly small staff, but the advertising, quite likely the printing, and possibly some of the more international content comes from the multinational uber-company.
Contrary to the cynicism that a lot of other readers punt, this structure has been widely adopted in the print media for decades, in no small part because over the longer term advertisers and editorial staff both recognise that customers tend to re-visit publications that put a high value on their editorial independence. This is not to deny that clashes do happen - they do - but to stress that more mature media have developed techniques for reducing the frequency and severity of such clashes, while recognising that they are inevitable and actually good for the publication in the longer run.
It's likely that 17,348 separate SlashDotters will reply and regale me with tales of their miserable experiences. None of them will have got as far as reading this, but I'll waste electrons writing it nonetheless : firstly, a significant part of the computer press is not particularly "mature", especially parts that have come from web back into print media. This applies to both publications and individual "journalists". Secondly, I'm describing the situation I know in Europe - I don't know (or care much) about the situation in other countries media - if you don't like the media you get in in your home country, either import stuff that you do like, or move out. If you don't have those options, then you've likely got bigger problems.
(Caveat - I learned a lot about journalistic ethics and the "back room" organisation of news media from being friends with a British editor who spent a couple of decades in NZ and AU before returning to teach and practice journalism in Britain and Norway ; he tells me that the structures "down south" are broadly similar.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"