Rumor Blogs & First Amendment

Chatting with my brother recently, he mentioned something that I thought was relevant to our class, if a little late:

User-friendly Apple shows a blogger its ruthless core

What happens when your blog is so successful (and is all about leaking secrets) that a company wants to shut you down?

That's what happened to AppleInsider, a blog devoted to supplying consumers with rumors and gossip about the latest Apple product news. It was so accurate that even employees like my brother (well, a former employee) would follow it.

Well, Apple sued the blog because the accurate information had to come from sources disclosing trade secrets, but AppleInsider argued that it was its First Amendment rights to not disclose its sources. Apple won at first, but lost on the appeal, because

"The higher court ruled that there could be no distinction between 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' news when it came to the first amendment, and that bloggers were functionally identical to journalists within the context of California law."

Still, Apple kept going after the blog, saying that it violated the Uniform Trade Secrets Act by asking for "insider tips", so the court finally arranged a compromise: None of the sources had to reveal themselves and the blog didn't have to pay Apple, but the blog had to shut down.

This brings up why blogs are valuable as another form of journalism today: "As AppleInsider's Kasper Jade commented: 'Letting corporate America dictate what bloggers and journalists can say or publish threatens to set a very ominous precedent.' ....The blogosphere is full of such people [as the blogger for AppleInsider], who sometimes publish stuff that is of public interest but which no mainstream outlet will touch."

We need different individual voices who write for themselves, not for a corporation, to counter the official voices.

When it comes to a blog whose sole purpose to provide rumors, though, I'm not sure that counts as journalism...what do you think? As my journalism professor has discussed, the purpose of journalism is to present a fair, balanced picture to the public and help them make sense of the information. A rumors blog, by its nature, is not about presenting a balanced picture, although I suppose it could by analyzing how true a rumor could be. I think a blog that debunks rumors might be more likely to be true journalism.

An interesting point is the contrast between blogs and Apple—blogs by their nature cater to users, and Apple is supposedly user-friendly but actually very harsh on its most fervent followers if they happen to leak information. I'm not surprised that Apple isn't as "nice" as it seems, because like Microsoft and other big corporations, they need to protect their bottom line.

So...to all those out there who want to start a rumors blog, be careful who you choose to talk about!

--Hana