The toughest challenge for any newsroom is being the story. How should editors report about the news when they’re it, particularly if there are legal matters? That’s exactly Gizmodo‘s situation, following a Friday night police raid of editor Jason Chen’s home. Gizmodo waited until Monday to post about the search and seizure of items from Jason’s home, which included four computers and two servers. Gizmodo has responded tactfully from editorial and legal perspectives.
Did you really need to publicly shame the poor guy with his full name and photo? Don’t you think he feels bad enough already? Did that really add anything to the story? You just took […]
I have deeply mixed feelings about siding with Apple and not Gizmodo regarding the iPhone prototype the Weblog paid to acquire. After all, as a seasoned journalist, I should strongly advocate no-questions-asked free speech. Instead, last night I blogged for Betanews: “Apple should sue Gizmodo over stolen iPhone prototype“. I had planned to write something here, but Betanews founder Nate Mook asked for a story, which I gladly delivered.
IApple’s mobile phone business would go the same way as the Mac did in the 1980s and 1990s.
Morgan Stanley recently decided to stop making payments on five San Francisco office buildings. A Morgan Stanley fund purchased the buildings at the height of the boom, and their value has plunged. Nobody has said […]
There is quite the ethics flap going on over the last 72 hours or so about TechCrunch’s handling of leaked Twitter documents.
Looming questions: Is Michael Arrington wrong to distribute any of the leaked material, which a hacker stole? Is the posting of the documentation unconscionable? Is there journalistic excuse, or justification for it?
Yesterday, a seemingly official Microsoft Twitter accounted fooled popular blogs and mainstream news sites to write that Microsoft would introduce a new Zune platform in June. But the account wasn’t from Microsoft.
Allegedly, David Z from Haklab set up the account. I e-mailed Haklab today asking:
I love guerrilla marketing, and know how to recognize it, which is why I didn’t get sucked into the vortex like other bloggers and journalists. But it’s confession time. Who are you really, and what are your objectives? Not that I’m sure I will believe you. But try me. I want to blog on the problem of Twitter and shoddy journalism. You’re the case study.
This afternoon, I got a response. David claims to have exploited a Microsoft mistake—that the Twitter feed from Microsoft’s Office 2010: The Movie Website went to an unclaimed account. So he registered the Twitter account, @officethemovie. My suspicion: There was a typo on the page, and the account should have read: @office2010movie, as it does now.
Yesterday’s “@officethemovie” pwning is about the worst example yet of new news media gone wrong. In the quest for clicks—and the feeble ad rates they pay—bloggers and old-time journalists rushed to write about a new Zune platform coming in June. Apple is rumored to be unveiling the new iPhone the same month. Additionally, the E3 gaming expo starts June 2. I guess it all was just too tantalizing for people to check their facts. The source wasn’t Microsoft. But most blogs and news sites reported that it was.
I had the below IM conversation with Nate Mook of Betanews after posting about PR blogging on my work blog. All times are Pacific (-8 GMT):
Joe says: (3:54:02 PM)
I couldn’t resist: http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/developer/net_35_sp1_changes_your_expression.html
Nate says: (3:57:30 PM)
Saw that
Nate says: (3:57:31 PM)
Good post
Nate says: (3:57:40 PM)
I’ve been thinking the same thing recently
Joe says: (3:57:47 PM)
I’m really bugged about this.
Joe says: (3:57:52 PM)
Ah, good for you.
A confession, long time coming—or perhaps just explanation—about recent professional changes. Until November 2006, I was a market research analyst covering Microsoft and had been since May 2003. I left the analyst position and returned to journalism for many reasons.
Graduates are hitting the job market and New York Times has a warning: Nothing public you post online is private, and potential employers are scouring your Facebook, MySpace or Xanga to see who you really are.
My daughter and I fled the house today, down the road to the 7-Eleven. My wife had gone out for the afternoon—and left to fend for our own lunch, we opted for convenience. My daughter got a turkey and cheese sub, while I went for a burrito. But on the way to the convenience store, there was adventure: A lost cell phone.
As we cut across a parking lot towards the 7-Eleven, I spotted a clamshell on the pavement. Well, well, finder’s keepers? Not in my family. Lost is returned. We hoofed over to the building adjacent to the parking lot, asking if someone had lost a cell phone. The folks inside weren’t exactly helpful. I called myself using the lost phone, hoping to get some caller ID. None, except a number with 206 area code, which I recognized as Washington State.