Charles on… anything that comes along

In News Sites support Rumo[u]r Sites in Apple Case, John Gruber comments:

California newspaper publishers have filed a court brief supporting PowerPage’s and Apple Insider’s appeal. If they think this “reporting” is so great, and so worthy of protection, why don’t they hire Jason O’Grady, Kasper Jade, and Nick Ciarelli?

Simple, John - because they don’t want to hire them (just yet, who knows) but think that there’s a principle worth defending there, relating to journalism, and which sets an important precedent.

Look, what if there were a blogger - or someone running a gossip site - who effectively relayed some piece of whistleblowing, such as that a new product used something which internal tests had shown to be dangerous? That’s happened, after all, in drugs companies - except you didn’t get the whistleblowing. Or what if the employee relayed something about the new drug, and someone *else*, with specialist knowledge outside, put the pieces together about the risk?

Instead, what happens? The drugs company sues the hell out of the site under the Californian “trade secrets” law. And if the Apple case sets a precedent, then the site loses, big time. In fact, if the Apple case does set a precedent, it has a chilling effect on all sorts of sites, and potential whistleblowers, which means that the public interest - as well as the interest of the public - are not served.

One suspects that Apple finds itself in an uncomfortable place here. Here’s my guess at what happened: the lawyers were told to find a way to make the sites sorry. So they look around, and discover there’s the trade secret law they can employ. Great! Scare the little sites! Except that it escalates, because the sites have attracted attention by getting info that’s right.

So they think the reporting, as a concept, is worthy of protection. As for hiring those guys - ach, they’re still young. Who knows if they want a grinding job on a paper? Blogging can be more fun :-)

Endnote: the Columbia Journalism Review daily notes (here) that the newspaper publishers comment in their amicus brief:

Punishing journalists who did not illegally obtain access to trade secrets for publishing information on a matter of public interest would impair the news media’s ability to report on the activities of corporations and other businesses. The result will be a restriction in the flow of information to the public, inhibiting the public’s ability to make informed choices related to government, industry, health and a host of other subjects that affect people’s everyday lives.

I think that’s pretty much the same as I said, but longer. And yes, I note that the judge in his original finding that the case wasn’t protected by the US First Amendment commented that that company employees who leak trade secrets are distinct from “the whistleblower who discloses a health, safety or welfare hazard affecting all, or the government employee who reveals mismanagement or worse by our public officials, (the enthusiast sites) are doing nothing more than feeding the public’s insatiable desire for information.” But the principle remains.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Journalism or "churnalism"? Nick Davies of the Gdn weighs in.. (31 January 2008; score: 38.66%)
• Newspapers' resistance to change 'borders on pathological' (17 March 2005; score: 35.25%)
• What newspapers need: an obligatory corrections column (17 January 2005; score: 30.98%)