Official statement on “Applegate”
Thursday, May 17th, 2007 - 4:16PM
My / Engadget’s official statement on “Applegate” can be found here.
Mike Arrington also discusses here. Ok, and I can’t resist Brian Lam’s writeup at Giz, either.
Um, eagerly awaiting the weekend!
Update: lots more dialogue going on, much of which is trackable here: Gartenberg, Scoble, Winer, PC World, Wired, Mathew Ingram, IP & Democracy, The Inq, Shiny Shiny, ComputerWorld, TechDirt
i bet you are. ;)
I think the problem wasn’t the retracted post, that happens all the time for various reasons everywhere. but people are so trigger happy on the stock exchange that they immediately sold on the basis of your post. and then had the gall to insult you on the WSJ blog (one guy claimed he lost 110k! and wanted to sue you. what a jerk).
I thought arrington did a really good job on the write up, very balanced, especially for him. Unlike others (infinite loop…)
btw - do you buy the conspiracy story? ie someone faked the email and shorted the majority of the stock sold?
Comment by jeff fowler — Thursday, May 17, 2007 @ 5:16 pm
Keep your head up, Ryan. As Engadget is the top blog out there and an authority in the gadget industry, it’s just stuff you have to deal with. But hey, be happy you folks have that much credibility.
Comment by Carlos — Thursday, May 17, 2007 @ 6:04 pm
I think a lot of the blame for this lies in the fact that people we setting their automatic floor ’sell price’ stops much too high for stock. Any temporary fluctuation (y’know, like the kind when some day trader dumps millions of dollars of stock) and k-pow, you as a person not scanning the stock market prices all day, have automatically sold your valuable shares unwittingly.
Whoever it was that sold the big initial load of shares really made the proverbial hit the fan.
Comment by dogarms — Thursday, May 17, 2007 @ 6:39 pm
Ryan, I am glad you posted that; it sheds more light on the circumstances. I have to say I don’t envy you having to make that call; it’s one that journalists have had to make many times before, and it’s often come back to bite them on the bum. Go with the hot scoop, or wait for confirmation? The frantic pace of the web makes this even worse; a couple of minutes delay and your scoop will be a [Via] link.
Hindsight, is, of course 20/20, but I probably would have done what you did and published the story. But with something serious like this, I would have put something in there to the effect of “we tried to contact Apple; no response”. That, at least, shows that you are trying to follow up, which your original post didn’t bring across. You obviously were, but it didn’t look that way. On my site wirelessinfo.com, we flag stuff like this with an Unconfirmed Info logo to show that it’s not been checked, and we also use a rumor logo to show stuff that we can’t confirm. Then, if someone wants to use this as a basis to sell their stocks on, they can’t turn around and blame us.
Anyway, it all goes to show how much impact blogs can have. Who would have though a few years back that a few lines on a Web site would move a mountain?
Comment by Richard Baguley — Thursday, May 17, 2007 @ 7:51 pm
There’s a bajillion comments on that writeup, so I’d rather say here that it’s a shame you have to “earn” back people’s trust. Someone (maybe several someones) over there mentioned that you didn’t apologize, but knowing the circumstances, there seems to be no reason for you to have to apologize.
I’m sorry your group is going through this, and I hope it all blows over soon. Engadget is one of the most enjoyable sites there is to read, and it’ll be awesome when everyone forgets about this and it’s business as usual.
Keep on truckin’.
Comment by John B. — Thursday, May 17, 2007 @ 9:17 pm
Ryan,
You’re a fantastic journalist. Your passion for what you do only strengthens your already solid ability, and although I can only speak for myself, I’m know that a lot of people feel the same way I do.
As for journalistic integrity… no matter what someone might say publicly, ANYONE would have done exactly what you did. Hell, even in your statement on the incident, while covering your own ass, you did so coherently, honestly, and grammatically correct(ly?)
Try not to let it affect you too much. Things like this happen all the time! Think back to right after September 11th. The New York Times (shamelessly) published flat out lies, and received no more than a slap on the wrist.
Only time will tell what (if any) lasting effect this incident will have on society. In the meantime, you’ve gained a lot of notoriety and while some people might hold you in a negative light, I for one think you think you should be commended for your professionalism and maturity in dealing with the situation at hand, as well as inadvertently exposing a massive flaw in our nation’s economic system.
It’s these sort of things that catapult people into infamy.
Whether you see that as a good thing or a bad thing… you, Ryan Block, are a blogging legend.
-j.R
Comment by just.Rob — Thursday, May 17, 2007 @ 9:56 pm
Writing boring, safe posts is a million times worse than whatever flack you caught for “AppleGate”. Do not stop pushing the limits in seeking interesting thing for us to read.
“…It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite things than to succeed in the department of the utterly contemptible.” - Arthur Machen
Comment by Todd — Friday, May 18, 2007 @ 4:39 am
Ryan, well handled in a professional manner. Of course, I’d expect nothing less because I know personally how professional you are. The issue doesn’t even qualify as a ‘blip’ on the radar of your career or integrity as far as I’m concerned. Keep fighting the good fight!
Comment by Kevin C Tofel — Friday, May 18, 2007 @ 5:09 am
No need for any apologies - no one would have sat on that story under those conditions. Keep up the good work.
Comment by Matt — Friday, May 18, 2007 @ 6:33 am
Sorry, Ryan. You screwed up and you ought to say mea culpa.
Others DID receive the email and did NOT publish it.
They rang Apple and got a straight answer, as any publication would with a sense of responsibility.
Engadget is not responsible. Full stop.
Comment by Jon T — Friday, May 18, 2007 @ 7:31 am
Engadget has news for people who love gadgets and technology. This was a credible rumor that such people would want to know about so it made sense to publish. The only people hurt were daytraders and other stock market knuckleheads. Those people don’t really seem to be Engadget’s target audience. While it may not be ideal if those people find Engadget to be less credible it doesn’t seem like it is that big of a deal either.
It seems that Engadget will take some steps to try and make sure that this doesn’t happen again, but when you deal with rumors and speculation (no matter how credible) you are going to have some misses. I think Engadget’s core readership understands and accepts that.
Comment by Chris — Friday, May 18, 2007 @ 9:09 am
You handled the situation tastefully, Block. With Engadget being the Perez Hilton for gadgets and gizmos, you took a calculated risk and people took it as absolute fact. That, coupled with the iPhone’s already extreme price, and I could see why people would be quick to jump the gun and rid themselves of Apple stock. You needn’t apologize to anyone but yourself.
Comment by Nick S — Saturday, May 19, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
@Jon T.
Do your research before mouthing off, dude. In the linked post, it’s clear that Ryan tried to contact Apple PR — a notoriously tight-lipped group — several times before publishing.
Comment by E Money — Monday, May 21, 2007 @ 5:55 am
Ryan, you just got called out pretty hardcore by Scott Bourne on the latest MacBreak Weekly. Do you really have a history of bashing Apple?
Comment by Mitchel Tyrell — Wednesday, May 23, 2007 @ 8:16 pm
Um, no? I don’t even know where these people get this stuff. Anyone who loves Apple thinks Engadget hates Apple, and anyone who loves Microsoft thinks we hate Microsoft. I hear this same crap every day. I guess it’s kind of a weird form of reverse-projection?
Comment by Ryan Block — Wednesday, May 23, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
[...] have to write some severe editorial if this didn’t go down. Jobs when I approached him about Applegate at lunch: Jokingly offered to let him punch me; he played dumb. Clever! Mahalo launch: I know [...]
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