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An apology...

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Re: An apology...

#171

Post by mattmaroon »

ubernostrum wrote: post #168
mattmaroon wrote: post #167

This is absurd. Gizmodo owes no apology. They're journalists (however loosely) and a journalist's job is to report the W's, including the who. It's a relevant fact, and one of great interest, how an iPhone prototype wound up lost at a bar. They've been pretty clear the whole time that it was an honest mistake on the guy's part. Could happen to anyone. They most certainly did not smear the guy at all. I don't think th…

They're journalists (however loosely) If by "loosely" you mean "not at all", then I'd agree. and a journalist's job is to report the W's, including the who. It's a relevant fact, and one of great interest, how an iPhone prototype wound up lost at a bar. It's a relevant fact that it was lost at a bar. Publicly shaming the individual, though? Doesn't add a damn thing to the story. In fact I'd say they were overly gener…

Gizmodo is much closer to journalism than anything else in the Gawker network, though that's obviously a "skinniest kid at fat camp" compliment. I won't say I'm a fan, but they do some good work on occasion.

Sometimes solid reporting causes shaming, such as when someone does something wrong. It's unavoidable, if occasionally regrettable. Shaming is not unethical in that respect, it's simply exposition of facts. It's no less relevant who dropped the iPhone than who leaked Valerie Plame's name.

They didn't go out of their way to shame him. They didn't say "he check out what this donkey did, I sure hope he gets fired for it". They in fact mentioned many times that it could happen to anyone.

It's quite relevant who did it because it gives you a picture of how it happened. It's also a great look into Apple's closely-guarded secrecy. Who would have suspected that engineers are taking next-gen phones to bars?

It's also standard operating procedure in journalism to name who.

The reaction against this is nothing more than "there but for the grace of God go I" which is not a valid reason to call for an apology. It's not that Gizmodo did anything wrong, which they clearly didn't, at least not in naming him. (Perhaps buying the phone crossed a legal or ethical line, but that was clearly not OP's problem.)

Re: An apology...

#172

Post by borism »

sree_nair wrote: post #151
sree_nair wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Can we do this till they apologise publically and withdrew all links to this story please?. Let's do something than just talking.

Can someone tell me why this is downvoted?.

because it's stupid?

geeks already know what gawker and gizmodo are about and just don't care.

Re: An apology...

#174

Post by mattmaroon »

mahmud wrote: post #40

I will celebrate the day when HN front-page is not filled with Apple drama and gossip.

I've thought of making a Greasemonkey script to accomplish just that. I spend much less time here since it's turned into a Digg-like extension of their PR machine.

Re: An apology...

#175

Post by derwiki »

jacquesm wrote: post #99

Suggestion: add gizmodo to the HN banned domains list.

This seems sort of absurd -- I don't think HN should ban any domains. If people want to read something, it gets voted up. If they don't, it gets flagged or not upvoted. Why should the subset of users who care about this thread (I almost missed it) censor an entire domain for everyone else? If it really bothers you, write a Greasemonkey script to mask certain domains.

Re: An apology...

#176

Post by ubernostrum »

mattmaroon wrote: post #171
ubernostrum wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're journalists (however loosely) If by "loosely" you mean "not at all", then I'd agree. and a journalist's job is to report the W's, including the who. It's a relevant fact, and one of great interest, how an iPhone prototype wound up lost at a bar. It's a relevant fact that it was lost at a bar. Publicly shaming the individual, though? Doesn't add a damn thing to the story. In fact I'd say they were overly gener…

Gizmodo is much closer to journalism than anything else in the Gawker network, though that's obviously a "skinniest kid at fat camp" compliment. I won't say I'm a fan, but they do some good work on occasion. Sometimes solid reporting causes shaming, such as when someone does something wrong. It's unavoidable, if occasionally regrettable. Shaming is not unethical in that respect, it's simply exposition of facts. It's…

Sometimes solid reporting causes shaming, such as when someone does something wrong. It's unavoidable, if occasionally regrettable. Shaming is not unethical in that respect, it's simply exposition of facts. It's no less relevant who dropped the iPhone than who leaked Valerie Plame's name.

The story in this case was that an iPhone prototype was found after being lost. The key thing here was the prototype itself, not the person who lost it. Contrast with the Plame case, where the central question was who leaked the information and why; your assertion simply doesn't hold up.

They in fact mentioned many times that it could happen to anyone.

Which supports the thesis that the identity of the specific person it happened to is irrelevant to the story.

It's also standard operating procedure in journalism to name who.

When it's relevant or adds to the understanding of the story, yes. You've not explained how it meets either of those criteria, though.

So I'll lay out the question clearly: what do we gain, in terms of understanding this story, from having the guy's name repeatedly tossed out for ridicule, that we wouldn't have without it?

And what do we gain from stories like this?

http://gizmodo.com/5520669/it-was-gray-powells-birthday

It's not that Gizmodo did anything wrong, which they clearly didn't, at least not in naming him.

It's quite clear that they did several things wrong. This wasn't good journalism; it wasn't ethical; parts of it quite probably weren't legal. If you can't see the problems here, I'm not sure how much more clearly I can explain.

Re: An apology...

#177

Post by flyosity »

swilliams wrote: post #2

What reason did gizmodo have to release the identity of the engineer that lost the phone? To "prove" that their story was more real? Did they even consider what's going to happen to that guy? Every gawker website feels like it is just barely a half step above a tabloid, and in some cases, less than that (cf, Valleywag). Behaving this petulantly is not a very good way to discourage the popular perception of bloggers,…

Gizmodo could have written nearly the same exact article without mentioning his name and without showing his photo. It would have gotten nearly the same amount of pageviews. It was very, very cruel of them to do such a thing when they gained so little by doing so.

Re: An apology...

#178

Post by hugh3 »

nearestneighbor wrote: post #152
qeorge wrote: post #33

The engineer in question is a good friend of several of us here at HN. We sincerely appreciate the support he's being shown here and elsewhere around the internet. So there is no doubt: Gray is one of the smartest engineers I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, and I'm sure he feels terrible about this. Although I'm sure this is going to be one of the worst weeks of his life, he will land on his feet, wherever that…

> The engineer in question is a good friend of several of us here at HN. Do you mean that literally, or similar to "Ich bin ein Berliner"? If the former, that's a rather incredible coincidence, wouldn't you say?

Not that much of a coincidence. It's a pretty big site, and a pretty small world.

Re: An apology...

#179

Post by eventhough »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #24
razerbeans wrote: post #14

Seeing the name-drop of the Apple engineer on Gizmodo made my jaw drop. I couldn't believe that they would do such a thing. This no doubt casts a shadow on his career and life. It's a reckless attempt by what appears to be a subpar site to make itself somewhat legitimate. In this respect, they've failed miserably.

As much as I hate to defend Gawker I don't think you can blame them for the negative impact on his career. Say what you will he is guilty of what they claim he did. I would hope future employers would be willing to look past it and realize it was an innocent mistake but they have a right to know. In the end this incident is relevant to how much you trust him with prototypes in the future. Beyond that Gawker is a news…

I am voting you back up. I believe your opinion is sound and deserves to be recognized.

Re: An apology...

#180

Post by eventhough »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #82
fhars wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Omitting irrelevant facts is the whole point of news publishers in the informaton age. You don't pay them to find information, you pay them to filter information.

The mistake you make is in assuming your judgement of what is irrelevant is sacrosanct. Again I give an example... Let's say a Conservative reporter is in Iraq and for whatever reason he's the only reporter allowed there. Let's say he finds out that there were no WMD but says to himself "That's irrelevant because President Bush thought there were WMD so there's no reason for me to report on that". Would that be right…

I believe the press has the freedom to print whatever they want so long as they are following first amendment rights. I feel neutral to the entire situation. Of course it's crappy that the guy's identity was outed but at the same time it was completely within Gizmodo's rights to do so. For that I am voting you backup.
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