New York Times Story on Gizmodo’s iPhone Prototype

Miguel Helft and Nick Bilton, reporting for the NYT:

The person who found the phone peddled it to Gizmodo, which bought it for $5,000, Nick Denton, chief executive of Gawker Media, which owns Gizmodo, said by instant message. […]

No sourcing from the Times to verify the phone was “found”, rather than obtained by some other means, other than Gizmodo’s own reporting.

By late in the day, reports began to surface on the Internet that Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, had called Gizmodo to get the device back. Mr. Denton declined to comment, saying any conversation between Mr. Jobs and Gizmodo would most likely have been off the record.

What reports, where? Update: Presumably they were referring to this post at The Awl from Choire Sicha. Would have been good for the NYT to note that Sicha was a long-time employee of Denton’s, having served as Gawker editorial director.

“We haven’t had any formal communication with Apple,” he said. Brian Lam, the editor in chief of Gizmodo, said his publication would “probably” return the device to Apple.

“Probably” as opposed to what? There are a mountain of legal issues I believe Gizmodo has already run afoul of, but under what grounds can they possibly not return this unit to Apple? It is Apple’s property and Gizmodo is in possession of it.

★ Monday, 19 April 2010