Are Blogs the Digital Equivalent of ADD?
Absolutely. Posting on SI is another manifestation of ADD, said Glenn with a chuckle, serene in the knowledge that his post total is still comfortably under 10,000 after six years.
chicagotribune.com
Are online reporters the real thing?
Apple suit stirs debate whether bloggers have same rights as traditional journalists
By Mike Hughlett, Tribune staff reporter: The Associated Press contributed to this report
Published March 12, 2005
A controversial court case over leaked trade secrets published on the Internet has sparked a debate over whether online reporters have the same protections as traditional journalists.
But on Friday, a California judge said that no matter if you're a small-time Internet blogger or big-time broadcaster, there is little protection for those who publish illegally leaked company trade secrets.
The judge ruled Friday that three online reporters must disclose their confidential sources to Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Computer Inc. It's a decision that's likely to send chills through media outlets, who often rely on confidential sources to report sensitive stories.
Apple, which has seen its fortunes soar due to the popularity of its iPod portable music player, shook the online world when it claimed the Web sites did not have the same legal protections as mainstream media.
In December, Apple sued several unnamed individuals for leaking proprietary product information to two Web sites, Apple Insider and PowerPage, which are read primarily by people heavily interested in Apple products. The sites ran stories about a pending Apple music software product, code-named Asteroid.
Apple, long known for its secrecy, claims the stories were based on information its own employees leaked, violating non-disclosure agreements and possibly California's Uniform Trade Secrets Act.
Along with the suits, Apple has tried to subpoena the three reporters who wrote the Web articles, hoping they'll disclose the names of the leakers. In its suit, Apple claimed that the reporters did not have the same legal protection as mainstream media, igniting outrage in the growing Internet newsgathering community known as bloggers.
But on Friday, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg wrote that even if the Web site reporters were journalists, their privilege "is not absolute." Reporters and their sources do not have "a license to violate criminal laws."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the online reporters, called Kleinberg's decision "a broad-brushed ruling that threatens journalists of all stripes." The San Francisco group is dedicated to free speech on the Internet.
While the case may make news organizations uncomfortable, some legal experts say the ruling does not set a national legal precedent. It is one judge's opinion in one case.
The reporters sought a protective order against the subpoenas, arguing they have the same legal rights as reporters for newspapers, television stations and other traditional media. Chief among those rights in California is a shield law.
The California shield law is intended to protect journalists and encourage the publication of information in the public's interest.
Illinois, too, has a law to protect reporters from disclosing sources unless all other available sources of information have been exhausted. Also, disclosure in Illinois must be essential to the protection of the public interest involved.
The Illinois law does not deal with the Internet and broadly defines a reporter as someone regularly engaged in the business of collecting, writing or editing news for publication.
Such laws usually protect a reporter from naming confidential sources. With them, the thinking goes, confidential information that's in the public interest will actually reach the public.
But Kleinberg ruled the sites did not deserve the protection.
And for all the debate the case has generated over whether a Web site is the equivalent of a newspaper, Kleinberg essentially avoided the subject, legal experts said Friday.
Kleinberg acknowledged in his opinion that "the public is interested in Apple. ... But an interested public is not the same as the public interest."
Still, Kleinberg's opinion seemed to offer some room for allowing trade secrets into the public realm. The Apple case, he noted, didn't involve a whistleblower who discloses "a health, safety or welfare hazard affecting all."
Rather, the Web sites in the Apple case "are doing nothing more than feeding the public's insatiable desire for information."
Apple applauded the ruling. Company spokesman Steve Dowling said it affirmed Apple's view that "there is no license conferred on anyone to violate valid criminal laws."
The three Web reporters--Monish Bhatia, Jason O'Grady and one who goes by the pseudonym Kasper Jade--plan to appeal the ruling, their attorney said.
Apple has also sued another Web site specializing in Apple news, ThinkSecret.com, and Nick Ciarelli, the Harvard University freshman who runs it. That suit pivots on ThinkSecret's detailed reports this winter on Apple's latest iPod music players. The reports ran before Apple actually announced the products.
Apple's legal offensive against Web sites comes with the risk of undermining the company's goodwill with the free-spirited tech world, according to one academic who has studied the social effect of Apple products.
"You come off looking like a bully doing stuff like this," Robert Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University, told the Los Angeles Times.
"You come off looking like the evil emperor." |
