CNET cries uncle, Calacanis cries libel

CNet senior editor Molly Wood writes:

There are no secrets in technology today. Thanks to rumor sites such as Engadget, Gizmodo, and the army of sniffer sites they link to daily, nearly every big product release (along with some small ones) has been revealed, dissected, and evaluated long before it hits the shelves. Leaks, once the primary purview of political and business journalism, are the bread and butter of modern-day gadget hounds. …

Thanks to the Internet, there’s a new model for controlling information–that is, a complete lack of control. Bloggers, rumor sites, and even inside sources are running the show, but tech manufacturers are still stuck in their Cold War-like product release behaviors. They tightly control the distribution of both goods and information, hoping to maintain absolute secrecy in order to generate maximum results (that is, buzz) upon release, as well as protect any possible industrial advantage. But at this point, the only ones who are still following those rules are the journalists whose job it is to give you complete reviews of new products, so that you can make well-considered buying choices. …

As you know, Mac OS X Tiger was released today. It shouldn’t surprise you to know that Apple is a big vendor offender, when it comes to getting its hardware and software into the hands of reviewers, who can then helpfully inform your buying decisions in a timely fashion. I know–since my very first day as a tech journalist, and for the five years I spent on the Apple beat, the company tormented me by refusing to send hardware (its belief is that it’s better to have the stuff on the shelves than in the hands of reviewers), withholding software until the last possible minute, then calling me to complain about the rare review that wasn’t utterly glowing. …

Get a group of tech journalists together and you’ll hear them all complaining about the same companies regularly withholding review units or demanding a mountain of paperwork in exchange for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it loan period. But we’ve made these deals, over the years because we had to, in order to get the products into the labs, and tell you what to buy and what not to buy in a helpful fashion. Nowadays, our Faustian bargain is breaking down. …

On the one hand, the media are the idiots in this story. We’re the ones running around, tearing our hair out, agonizing over breaking NDAs on products that have been completely revealed by so-called unofficial sources. …

We media types need to quit kowtowing to manufacturers who are trying in vain to hold on to the last shred of control they think they have. Those manufacturers need to wake up and smell the RSS feeds–the information’s already out there. Quit acting like you’re doling out spoonfuls of sugar to the deserving few. Your audience is getting its sugar elsewhere. …

Meanwhile, Engadget.com’s publisher Jason Calacanis (who gave me the heads up on the CNET article) attacks Wood, suggesting that, in engaging in this self-flagellation and mentioning her own company’s policy of returning review products and refusing to do paid reviews, she “claims that Engadget and other blogs have no ethics.” Jason invites bloggers to investigate CNET’s ethics.