Ok, so it seems that Gizmodo bought a stolen iPhone prototype and wrote a story about.

Deplorable? Maybe. Some other tech journalists seem to have this ‘better than thou’ attitude about it, which kind of pisses me off. Is it because they paid for the stolen phone?

Sometimes journalists do illegal things to get a story, they trespass, they pay for ill-gotten information, they hack a politicians email account. If Gizmodo paid someone for stolen property that proves Apple has been purposefully hiding the cure for cancer, would that make it noble and justified? OK, it’s just a phone, but who are we to judge what is and what is not newsworthy? If I have my facts straight, there was no absolute way to tell if this purchased prototype was indeed Apple’s property. Simply having an Apple logo on it does not mean it belongs to Apple. Even if the person who ‘found’ the prototype told Gizmodo that it was stolen, still doesn’t mean it necessarily was.

Yes, it’s just a frakkin phone, not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I don’t think they did anything un-journalistic about it.

I think those bloggers who say ‘they would never have even thought of paying for this prototype’ are liars, or are afraid of their blogs (and in some cases, their careers) falling out of Apple’s good graces.