We publish confidential information almost every day on TechCrunch. This is stuff that is also "stolen," usually leaked by an employee or someone else close to the company, and the company is very much opposed to its publication. In the past we've received comments that this is unethical. ...But on our end, it's simply news.
If you disagree with that, OK. But then you also have to disagree with the entire history of the news industry. "News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising," is something Lord Northcliffe, a newspaper magnate, supposedly said. I agree wholeheartedly.
Alrighty then. Let's say I suddenly came into the possession of nude photos of Mr. Arrington. One would assume somebody would want to suppress those photos, if not Captain Crunch himself. Useful for frightening small children? Certainly. Newsworthy? Probably not, unless he's got his private portfolio data tattooed on his nether bits.
The real test here is not "Does somebody want to suppress this?" or "Do we have information no other news outlet has?" or "Will this get us a lot of attention and/or traffic?" The real test is, Does releasing this information serve the public good? If not, then the rest doesn't matter. Of course, that means exercising good judgement, something that appears to be in short supply over in Crunchville.
As I write this, TechCrunch has only published an arguably newsworthy document -- a pitch for a ridiculous TV show involving Twitter. That's a perfectly legit use of a leak, I think. Let's hope they stop there.
You can buy a badge, a gun, and a dozen donuts, but that doesn't make you a cop. You can publish a Web site and hire reporters and even get syndicated by the Washington Post, but that doesn't make you a journalist, let alone an expert on journalistic ethics.
There is a real story here, and it's about the wisdom of running your business inside a leaky cloud and whether Google needs to do a serious rethink about its password recovery tech.
Twitter has its head in the clouds. Arrington's is stuck in a somewhat more earthbound extremity. I'm pretty confident Twitter will do something to address this problem quickly, if it hasn't already. Arrington, though? Don't hold your breath.
Should confidential corporate info remain confidential? If not, who gets to decide? Post your thoughts below or e-mail me: cringe@infoworld.com.
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Download now »I had to admit I registered with Infoworld only to submit a comment, as this is really outrageous.
First: thanks for serving the public with this post. This is the kind of news I would expect from a sound person. I might not always agree with your comments, but I have not yet seen an instance where you hadn't applied your lithmus test of serving the public.
Second: Michael Arrington's comments justifying his acts are a disgrace to journalism (since when newspaper magnates define journalism ethics?). After his corrupted view admission I had to reclassify his writings from the "useful information" to the "tabloid news" category to avoid taken for granted some unresearched topic he might have published in the past. This is similar to when a CSI is shown to be corrupt: all previous cases are nullified as the evidence can't be trusted.
Now I wish I had a mental "search and reclassify" to find all bits of information I got from him....
And this is the Company which wants to own your next Operating System! HAH!! I think I'd better check my Yahoo Account now, and see who's pwning it today.
Frankly, nude photos wouldn't dent the daily Internet din. It would be the 'action' in the photos that would create interest. If they were 'artsy fartsy', what would be the point? If he was molesting a 15 year-old, it would be porn and probably the authorities would investigate. If he were performing some bizarre act, it would cause comment and questions. So the example wasn't all that great. Now if you came into possession of his bank records and published them (removing his SSN and bank numbers) - well, then you have a story and an ethical debate!
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