aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Apple polisher update

Last week, in Apple polishers at PC World?, I quoted the story that Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken quit because the company’s new CEO, Colin Crawford, tried to kill a story titled “Ten Things We Hate About Apple.”

Today we learn that McCracken’s back and Crawford’s been kicked upstairs. The ten things story that started it all - with a note about the brouhaha - was printed Monday.

Here’s 1: Free Speech, Anyone?

Even if you’re no Apple fan, this particular issue might not rise to the top of your own personal gripe list--but hey, we’re journalists. So sue us.

Er, that’s probably not the right turn of phrase to use, considering that in December 2004, Apple filed a lawsuit against the AppleInsider, O’Grady’s PowerPage, and Think Secret Web sites for posting information about upcoming technologies that Apple had shared with outsiders under nondisclosure agreements. In the case of O’Grady, the news was of a FireWire interface for GarageBand. In the words of O’Grady himself: “yawn.”

Apple pressured the sites to reveal their sources, and even worse, pressured the sites’ ISPs. In May 2006, a California court said no way, ruling that online journalists enjoy the same First Amendment rights as “legitimate” offline journalists. Seems silly in today’s world, doesn’t it? Recently, the court ordered Apple to pay the sites’ legal fees--about $700,000.