Just over a week later and my April 19th post is extremely out of date. Gizmodo editor Jason Chen is facing criminal charges for purchasing stolen property. Paying for access is one (very troubling and ethically murky) thing for a journalist to do, but knowingly purchasing stolen property is another.
I really like the story of the new iPhone, not because I like iPhones (though I do) but because it’s a great study in journalistic ethics. I am not a tech writer or a pundit, and I don’t want to be. Forgive me if I gloss over tech issues; I like thinking about ethics and this is the perfect story to keep my brain working.
Gizmodo has photos of what they say is the new iPhone. It was apparently found in a bar in California disguised as a current model of iPhone. The phone’s hard drive was remotely wiped, and while Gizmodo can’t get it to work again, they disassembled it to confirm that yes, it probably is the new iPhone.
So now the ethics…
First, where did this phone come from? Well, Apple considers it stolen, and Gawker chief Nick Denton says the tale of the phone’s acquisition is a “corker” of a story. The person who lost the phone is likely in trouble (I say likely because I’m not Steve Jobs and I don’t know), unless it was a much more unfortunate case.
Second, how did Gizmodo get the phone? The person who found the phone appears to have shopped it around before selling to the press, and Gizmodo probably paid at least $5,000 for the thing.
So was it right for Gizmodo to buy the phone and write the story? Well, checkbook journalism is troubling, especially when information may have been solicited by a source. But then again, this phone was offered to a news outlet (or outlets). This reflects (poorly) on the ethics of the person who found the phone and decided to sell it to the press rather than return it to Apple. But we’re just talking about whether it was right to report on the phone. Unless Gizmodo commissioned theft, what does it matter how it got out? I don’t think Gizmodo owes any special deference to Apple, so why shouldn’t they publish it? Gizmodo’s/Gawker’s deference to California and federal law notwithstanding. You could also argue here that Gizmodo is encouraging–and possibly subsidizing–theft by buying the story.
It’s unlikely that lives (other than possibly the one linked above) hang in the balance with the iPhone, but damage could be done. The person who lost, stole or leaked the phone could be blacklisted from future jobs in the tech field. Maybe multiple people would face the same punishment. The iPhone story and the subsequent frenzy could affect Apple’s stock price, too. But all of this has to be weighed against public interest and the newsworthiness of the story.
All the factors that make the unreleased iPhone so precious a find also make it a tantalizing news story. Tech blogs (especially the Apple-centric ones) are hungry for information on new Apple products because Apple makes impressive products that people want. The constant media coverage may be annoying, but it’s a fact of a society with a free press. Is the fact that writers, editors and readers use and want Apple products reason enough to cede to the company’s wishes to control information? How is that good journalism? Should reporters hold back because someone they write about does a really good job?
Did Gizmodo violate any of Apple’s rights when they published the story? That’s hard to say. Unless the editors took part in actively stealing the phone, it’s tempting to say no. But then again, Gizmodo did apparently put up money for an information of ethically murky origin. Is this wrong? I don’t think Gizmodo should reveal (or be made to reveal) the source of the phone, but if they’re willing to buy information, it’s tempting to think they’re willing to sell it, too.
The comment I see a lot on various stories about this is, “It’s just a phone.” That’s true. It’s an exciting model of a very popular, industry-changing phone. But that’s pretty much all it is. If a newspaper printed secret Pentagon documents that showed the government had been secretly fighting a war against space aliens, would it matter whether the newspaper paid money for these papers? Yes, but the more important story would be that these documents were revealed to the public. Now, a new iPhone is not a matter of national security and intelligence, and it’s not a story that’s of pressing social and political importance, but it is a news item of significant interest to the audience and to debate the ethics of the lost/stolen phone story is to debate where the line should be drawn for journalists.
I’ve asked a lot of questions in this post, and I can’t answer any of them. I’ve been asking myself one big question, too: What would I do? If someone came to me with information (a phone, documents, whatever) and offered to sell them to me, how would I handle it? First, I would tell my editor and news director. I’m sure we would have a discussion about the information and what it would mean to report it. Do we pay for information? Is being first important in this case or does the need to obtain information completely transparently trump expediency? How important is the story?
What would you do?
UPDATE: This article has been published, explaining who lost the phone. I don’t see what it reveals, other than the man who lost the phone works at Apple and likes beer. Had they not summarized a month of details with the line “Weeks later, Gizmodo got it” then it might be a nice piece offering some transparency into one of the biggest tech scoops in recent history. Otherwise, it seems a little one-sided.
Finally…
More than rusty – I’ve been playing tennis lately, and I’ve really lost my touch. Maybe I was never that good, but then again, that would mean my whole high school tennis team was really, really horrible.
The power of iron - The Atlantic tells me to use my cast iron pan to its full potential.
The power of silicon - With things like this happening, it makes me wonder if there will someday be a high-end convergence of camera equipment. It also makes me want a DSLR.
Same as it ever was - This list seems extra mundane, despite the two-week delay.
And if it’s mundane things you like – There’s the new-wavish band The Mundanes, who I’ve been listening to. They are, in fact, fairly mundane, though I’ve seen that keyboard player somewhere else.
But who has time to listen to music - When there are things like this article to read. It’s one of the best long-form stories I’ve read in the last year or two, and it’s definitely worth an hour (or so) of your time.
Split the difference – Want to wear headphones and take in some quality journalism? Give this a listen.
For further listening – I interviewed Joel Kotkin for work last week. You can listen to it here. We touch on some of my favorite topics: politics, urban planning and the future.
If you want to be cool (which I am not) it’s not what you like, it’s what you don’t like. Having a giant record collection of post-punk music makes you a person with a good record collection. But if you build a post-punk library and purposely leave out every Smiths album, then you are cool. Why? Because you’re ignoring a piece of popular culture that you know has some significance to your peers and that you–by the standards you’ve set with your other records–should not ignore. The rest of your record collection may match your peers’ perfectly, but by unexpectedly excluding something seemingly important, you are making yourself slightly more interesting and slightly more cool.
Some people do this on purpose. They may like the Smiths, but they won’t admit it. Probably because they know the Smiths are popular with their peers and they know they’re expected to like the Smiths. This sort of (ultimately pointless) intellectual dishonesty gives other people who don’t like the Smiths a bad reputation. If you keep the Smiths out because you don’t like them, you probably aren’t trying to be cool and you don’t like the fact that you’re occasionally accused of not liking the Smiths for reasons other than musical taste.
But this post isn’t about the Smiths. It’s about the social dangers of not being interested or not liking popular things.
Like I said, I’m not cool, but I do have a giant record collection. I’m also young and interested in popular culture. This makes it socially dangerous for me to not be interested in things. If I say I don’t really care about a band, then it seems like I’m trying to be cool. That’s what happened when I told a friend I had never seen a Harry Potter movie or read a Harry Potter book.
“That’s so hip,” she said.
“I’m not avoiding it,”I said. “I just don’t care. I’m sure it’s great.”
“But you’re so…zeitgest-y,” she said. “I thought you’d be up on it.”
And I probably should be up on it. But my interest in popular culture has not overpowered my apathy. I read a Wikipedia article on Harry Potter, and that’s enough for me. I feel like I’m aware enough of Harry Potter’s pop culture significance.
Now let’s talk about Avatar. I don’t want to see Avatar. I don’t care about Avatar. Yes, it is some kind of cultural milestone. It’s big and expensive and high tech and it’s setting all kinds of records and it’s worth noting…but I don’t care.
I don’t think I’m missing out on anything by not seeing Avatar because I don’t think it’s the actual content of the movie that makes it noteworthy. Consider James Cameron’s last movie, Titanic. I never saw Titanic, but it was also big and expensive and high tech. It set all kinds of records and was worth noting, but I never saw it. More than a decade later, I don’t think I have any cultural blind spots because I saved $7 and three hours in 1997. Titanic was everywhere back then. It was in the news, on the internet, on TV and on the radio. While I never saw the movie, I learned enough about it to get the gist. I learned about the famous scenes, but those always seemed secondary to external factors like ticket sales, special effects budgets and smash-hit soundtracks. I can watch a movie or TV show that has a visual reference to or joke about Titanic and get it.
Like Titanic, Avatar doesn’t seem to be famous because it’s a good movie. It’s famous for being a big movie. It’s the kind of gigantic movie that became gigantic through hype, money and technology instead of through actual quality filmmaking. Now, maybe Avatar is a really well-made film, but it seems like every news story about the movie focuses on special effects or political controversy more than actual content.
Movies like Avatar and Titanic will always be more talked about than better movies because it’s pretty boring to talk about filmmaking. Traditionally good technique doesn’t generate hype and that’s fine. I’m not upset because some movies are more famous than others. I’m not upset at all, in fact. I’m just defending my decision not to see Avatar because I don’t think I need to see it to be part of the cultural phenomenon surrounding it. I think my regular methods of absorbing news and culture have given me enough information about Avatar to make me culturally literate until the next big movie I don’t care about comes along.
And this is where it should end. Kudos to James Cameron for making a movie that transcends the actual medium of cinema. Maybe this the future of blockbuster movies; they will get so big and will be seen by so many people that the people who don’t see them will still be aware of the plot points and technique. Hopefully the mountains of money and heaps of praise will help those involved with Avatar ignore the backlash.
Even moderately popular works are fodder for brutal cultural backlashes. Sometimes audiences get carried away and a backlash makes sense. But while I may write a few hundred words about why I probably won’t ever see Avatar, I won’t mock anyone who sees it, wants to see it or really likes it. I don’t have the authority to do that because I haven’t seen the movie. For someone to affect a superior tone and say, “I’ve never seen Avatar,” is just as intellectually dishonest as the post-punk fan who doesn’t listen to the Smiths because everyone else does. While I can certainly relate to disinterest, I can’t grasp the need to dislike something because other people like it.
After all, it’s just a movie.
Inspiration – I recently read Chris Ayres’ War Reporting for Cowards. It’s an overview of Ayres’ career–from journalism school to an aborted stint embedded in Iraq at the beginning of the invasion. It’s entertaining, but it also compares the mindset of aspiring journalists to that of war correspondents and explains how both personality types were subverted during the 2003 embedding scheme.
Perspiration – I’m gearing up to start playing tennis again. I’m not sure what to do with my glasses. I need them to see, but they tend to slip when I exercise.
Aspiration – I’ve spent the last few days listening to Bob Dylan albums and reading academic/obsessive theories about Bob Dylan. I will either write blog posts to follow up this one or this headful of ideas will drive me insane.
Liquid Inspiration – I’ve been making Pimm’s Cups. They’re not very strong, but they are very good.
Navigation – I’ve driven to Bloomington and Nashville recently for one-night trips. I hope to drive to more places soon. Any recommendations?
Maturation – Now some of my closest friends are getting married. I feel old.
Generation – When I was in elementary school, one of the magazines my parents had a subscription to was Wired. (When I think back to their reading lists, I realize my folks were/are pretty hip.) I remember seeing a few of these ads. I also remember saving things to Zip Disks. That about sums up the 90s for me.
Consternation – I just looked at the search terms that bring people to GBiotI. My favorites are “Gabe Bullard Syncopated,” “Old Bullard Lyrics,” “I was emo before Kanye made a hipster album” and “Garfield dying.” A few people come here every month looking for my professional information. For that, please go here.
BONUS ITEM:
Adoration – I just saw Stroszek for the first time. It’s great.
Disclaimer: This is one of those posts where I take something seriously, even though it’s fairly trivial. I do these sorts of things because I think it’s fun. You probably know that if you’re reading this, though. You probably also know that I’m not really taking any of this that seriously.
One time I was at a party where the host was letting Pandora DJ. A Bob Dylan song (Forever Young) came on. Before the first chorus, it was gone. A guest near the computer gave it a thumbs down and said, “Nobody our age takes that seriously any more.”
I like Bob Dylan. I grew up listening to Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde On Blonde will always be in my top 10. In college I experimented with the “bad” albums that came later, but I never got into it. My roommate, on the other hand, was deep into Dylan; he owned Under The Red Sky, and said it had some redeeming tracks. He got me into a few albums I’d written off as not worth it, but I never reached his level of fandom. I could never listen to the abysmal, multi-tracked cover of “The Boxer” and not laugh.
After graduation and a few months of not living with a Dylan apologist, I thought I lost interest in further experimentation. When Dylan released a Christmas album last year, I wanted to avoid it. But my old ways got the best of me. The album’s existence ate away at me and I ended up streaming a few tracks. I thought of my former roommate and tried to find something redeeming in the songs, but there was nothing for me. Even if all the proceeds were for charity, Christmas in the Heart didn’t sit right. Dylan had been on a hot streak since Time Out Of Mind; he was touring and making great albums, plus his satellite radio show was consistently great. But then there were the Pepsi ads and the Christmas songs. How can Dylan’s output be so dramatically unbalanced? It’s not for a lack of a filter or editing, because he’s producing music slower than ever. (Of the 17 years in his career that he didn’t put out at least one album, more than half of them are in the last decade and a half.) It seems like Dylan puts out tracks he thinks are good, but record buyers and critics only agree with him at certain times.
Take for example, this:
This track was done for a children’s charity compilation, and it doesn’t seem like something Dylan tried to knock out in between rounds of golf or whatever it is that he does in his spare time. Compared to the classic records, this sounds downright slick. There’s a glaring tape editing error on the vocal track for “Stuck Inside of Mobile,” and the early acoustic albums sometimes sound like they were recorded in an empty office during lunch hour (Another Side of Bob Dylan probably was). But those classics sound good to me. I think they’re good records. The mistakes work. This cover of “This Old Man” sounds ridiculous, but it probably sounds just as good to Bob as anything off of Freewheelin’.
Thinking of that, I can’t help but wonder if my roommate was right. Maybe there is something redeeming about every Dylan album. Maybe I’m the one who can’t get it right. To test this theory, I’m going to listen to every Bob Dylan album ever. Forty-eight years of music and more than 30 albums; from Bob Dylan to Christmas In The Heart. Here are the rules:
This may reek of the Weekly Records project I started last year. I’m still doing that, but it isn’t very interesting to write about anymore. I’m not reconsidering Dylan because it might be interesting to tell people about. I’m doing it because I want to see if there are any gems I’ve overlooked. It might be pretentious to say I like “Self Portrait,” but isn’t it just as elitist to say something a great musician worked hard on isn’t worth my time?
I’ll have to consider the opposite, too. Dylan may never have changed from the smart-alec he was in Don’t Look Back, and he’s taken strange turns not because he thinks it’s wise, but because he thinks it’s funny. Maybe some of his albums were meant as a prank on over-zealous critics and a test for fans who called Dylan America’s greatest poet. (If this sounds a bit far out, consider the scene in Don’t Look Back where a young English fan asks about the meaning of the Highway 61 Revisited cover photo. Dylan says there’s no meaning, but the fan says he’s spent an extensive amount of time studying it. It doesn’t seem implausible for anyone to want to step away from that kind of adoration.)
Or maybe there is no plan. Dylan’s work could just be hit or miss. The kind of circular logic I walked into in the last paragraph could be the makings of a pop music conspiracy theory, or it could be the clue to appreciating a lot of albums that I always thought were terrible. The only way for me to get to the bottom of it and be satisfied is to investigate and listen.
Stay tuned.
Still at it – I’m sticking to my goal of taking a picture every day, and only one (1-22) was shot in a late-night photo panic.
In the car – Nearly a year later, I only have 5,000 miles on my car. Maybe I’ll make some short trips soon. That, or at least go to Zappos to look for wing tips.
In my ears - Jonathan Richman is coming to Louisville, and I’m going.
On the air - The ballots are crowded in Louisville and I’m looking forward to the new season of election reporting.
Speaking of reporting - McSweeney’s 33 is a newspaper (literally, it’s The San Francisco Panorama) and a few copies finally made it to Louisville. One of those copies made it to my house, where it’s spread out on the living room floor right now.
To avoid printed pages – Try the Front Pages Tumblr. It’s a daily feed of front pages from the U.S. and U.K. with links to the top stories. It’s now the first RSS feed I look at in the morning.
And while we’re talking about nonfiction – I picked up a slightly used Mark Jacobson collection last week. I’m digging into it now and really enjoying the way he approaches stories. It’s kind of inspiring. He’s been reporting for years, but never writes like a jaded veteran. Every development seems surprising to him, and in turn surprising to me…the reader.
And now a movie - There’s a Stephin Merritt documentary making the festival rounds. Cool.
In “Eating the Dinosaur,” Chuck Klosterman writes that the world’s cultural memory is expanding. For evidence, he points out that in Back To The Future, Marty from 1985 calls Johnny B. Goode an oldie before playing it for a bunch of 1955 teenagers. Johnny B. Goode came out in 1958, 27 years before Back To The Future came out. Billie Jean came out in 1983, but nobody’s calling it an oldie. (Not to be confused with the capital ‘O’ Oldies section of 50s rock in some record stores).
Maybe the cultural memory is expanding because of technology, longer lifespans, etc., I don’t know. I’m bringing this up because I went to a music student showcase yesterday and heard a 14-year-old play the Blink-182 song Dammit, which came out in 1997, when the singer covering it was 1 or 2 years old. The kid was really into playing this song; it seemed like an emotional experience for him. He was relating to Dammit the way kids born in 1983 related to it when it was new and they were 14.
That kid rocking out to Dammit would be like me, at age 14, earnestly rocking out to Wang Chung, Tiffany, Huey Lewis or any of the other hits of 1987.
Two fun asides:
When Mike Judge was on Fresh Air in August, Terry Gross asked him how he came up with voices for King of the Hill characters. She called Boomhauer’s stream-of-consciousness blurts “A postmodern mumble.” I laughed at the description, but when I watched a rerun of King of the Hill later, I almost saw where Gross was coming from.
King of the Hill might be a postmodern cartoon. It’s humor usually comes from depicting mundane situations with such accuracy that they seem ridiculous. It’s almost like the writers spend half of every episode denying they’re making a cartoon. Some scenes play so straight they’re almost documentary. Boomhauer’s voice is one of the silliest on the show, but it’s not the funniest to me. Characters on the show that talk like normal people, with normal names like Jimmy Whichard who say normal things are funny because they’re characters on the show. And the show is a cartoon.
But King of the Hill might not be postmodern. Saying it is would over-philosophize the show and–in many ways–undermine the writers’ comedic chops. They’re being funny, and if the pursuit of humor leads to a show that can be philosophical, I’d give more credit to the writers for achieving their goal of comedy than for being (possibly) inadvertently po-mo.
The aggressive dryness turns some people off from King of the Hill. I have friends who say it’s too close to home and others who say it’s just not funny enough for them to watch. I can understand what they mean, and I can’t fault them for not liking the show’s style. The only criticism that really bothers me comes from those who say King of the Hill pushes right-wing ideas.
I’m not generally interested in knowing if people are liberals or conservatives, but the political approach to King of the Hill irks me because I just don’t think the show is politically conservative. People who think otherwise generally point out that Hank is the show’s protagonist, and he’s a conservative. Having a Reaganite come out on top in every episode might seem like a way to champion conservatism, but it’s not too often that Hank ‘wins’ at the end of the episode. The story arc usually leads Hank to a conflict with someone socially or politically opposed to him–government workers, psychologists, environmentalists–and ends with a resolution that does little to change the show’s canon. Hank at the end of the episode seems just like Hank at the beginning of the episode. He doesn’t die and he doesn’t dramatically change his life. Even if Hank reaches a happy resolution at the end of the show, it’s rarely because he defeats the antagonists. There’s always a compromise on Hank’s part.
For example, in one episode, Peggy and Hank fight over her role in the family. Frustrated with Hank’s apparent rebuke of her freedom, Peggy starts hanging around with feminist folk singers. She learns to play guitar and writes a song about a female turtle who is stuck in her shell. It’s an obvious metaphor for the Hills’ domestic life, and Peggy’s new friends love it. When Peggy performs the song at a guitar student showcase, she sees Hank in the back of the crowd, having come to terms with Peggy’s independence. She changes the song’s lyrics mid-performance, and ends up being ostracized by her new friends for singing about loving her husband. It might seem like Hank’s lifestyle won the day in this episode, but without his ability to compromise, the conflict wouldn’t have been resolved. The episode doesn’t undermine Peggy’s point of view, it shows the necessity of open-mindedness. Hank was stubborn and Peggy’s logic and passion made him change. Similarly, Peggy retreated from her position, and the episode showed the benefits of finding a medium between two comfort zones. If King of the Hill is pushing ideas, it’s pushing centrism here.
In another episode, Peggy is assigned to substitute teach a sex-ed class. At first, Hank refuses to accept that his son Bobby is going to learn reproductive health in school, let alone from Peggy. Hank can’t draw himself to discuss sex with his son, and he tells his wife she is forbidden from teaching the class. Peggy persists and Hank refuses to sign Bobby’s permission slip for the class. When the sex-ed day comes, Bobby goes with Hank to work. In Hank’s office, Bobby repeats a few of his dad’s arguments, and Hank realizes the necessity for sex-ed and appreciates Peggy’s bravery for teaching the class. He takes Bobby to school, where Bobby is the only student with permission to take the class. At that point, the Hills seem like the most logical family in Arlen, even though they’re raging liberals, comparatively.
The last, and possibly best, example comes from guest-star Chris Rock. In an early episode, Rock plays a comedian named Booda Sack who teaches Hank’s traffic school course. Hank doesn’t like Booda Sack’s abrasive or racially-charged jokes and ends up getting Booda Sack fired. Meanwhile, Bobby idolizes the comic and takes his own turn at abrasive and racially-charged humor. Booda Sack lets Bobby try out the act at the comedy club. When Hank finds out, he rushes to the club and stops Bobby in the middle of an unintentionally offensive stand-up set. When the crowd turns on them both, Booda Sack comes to the duo’s defense, and gives the audience a lecture about freedom of speech. The episode ends with Hank getting Booda Sack a job at Strickland Propane, where they trade “Your mama” jokes.
This episode highlights two of the ways Hank compromises in the show. First, he accepts that people like what Booda Sack does, so his own opposition to it doesn’t matter. He even lightens up enough to give it a try, taking a huge step out of his comfort zone. Second, Hank realizes that he can’t raise Bobby the way he wants to, and copes with it. He wants the best for Bobby, and accepts that he doesn’t know what that is. He knows that Bobby won’t be like him, and he gradually becomes okay with that. He changes his values to make peace with himself and the world around him. He isn’t trying to change the world, but just go along with it. That’s not political.
With almost every conflict in King of the Hill, the only resolution is rational compromise. The show doesn’t advocate one point of view–it champions the ability to change. No one in the show ever gets what they want, and they always end up happy. King of the Hill isn’t liberal or conservative…it’s moderate, and apolitically so. It doesn’t want to tell you what to think, it wants you to stop thinking you’re right.
It might seem like nonpartisan centrism is a boring thing to promote in a cartoon, but King of the Hill is boring. It’s boring on purpose, and that’s what makes it funny. So if the writers decide to extoll a political principle, it seems obvious that they would push for the belief that would be funniest in context. For a prime-time Fox cartoon sitcom that followed The Simpsons–and later preceded Family Guy–to champion social compromise is hilarious. It’s so funny that it seems possible the writers don’t want to espouse any philosophy, but are just going for laughs in the most unsuspected way. After all, they’re making a cartoon, and if that’s a postmodern way to make a cartoon, so be it, it’s also a funny way to make a cartoon.
In 2000, Hank went to a political rally and was so let down by George W. Bush’s clammy handshake that he considered not voting at all in the election. He eventually cast a ballot, but did’t say who he’d voted for. Whether he gave up his belief in the Republican Party and voted for Gore or whether he abandoned his image of presidents as tough, hard-gripped leaders and voted for Bush doesn’t matter. It made for a funny 22 minutes.
Here are some of my favorite photos from my 365 project:
And there have been a few updates on Tumblr.