The AP is reporting that Gawker paid $5,000 for the iPhone 4G prototype Gizmodo posted photos of this morning.
Additionally, Gizmodo has posted a follow-up story outlining how the phone ended up in the wild in the first place. In this story, there is no mention of how the device ended up in Gizmodo’s hands, just how an Apple software engineer left it at a bar back in March.
Here is there version of the story, from the guy who first found it, until now:
He reached for a phone and called a lot of Apple numbers and tried to find someone who was at least willing to transfer his call to the right person, but no luck. No one took him seriously and all he got for his troubles was a ticket number.
He thought that eventually the ticket would move up high enough and that he would receive a call back, but his phone never rang. What should he be expected to do then?
[…]
Weeks later, Gizmodo got it. It was the real thing. Once we saw it inside and out, there was no doubt about it. We learnt about this story, but we didn’t know for sure it was Powell’s phone until today, when we contacted him via his phone.
No mention of the $5,000. No respect for an young engineer who made a mistake — granted a big one — that very easily could have cost him a great job.
This whole thing continues to highlight Gizmodo’s drive to beat everyone else to a story, no matter who or what stands in the way. After posting the photos of the device, what does sharing the guy’s name do? And why not tell readers the name of the guy who found the device, and how much the site paid him for it?
Jesus Diaz closed his post with this:
He [the Apple engineer] sounded tired and broken. But at least he’s alive and apparently may still be working at Apple — as he should be. After all, it’s just a fucking iPhone and mistakes can happen to everyone — Gray Powell, Phil Schiller, you, me, and even Steve Jobs, a hero of Gray’s who he, on his Myspace page, declared as someone he would one day hope to meet.
The only mistake would be to fire Gray in the name of Apple’s legendary impenetrable security, breached by the power of German beer and one single human error.
Diaz needs to take his own advice. It is just an iPhone. And just a mistake.
What Gizmodo has done to “journalist blogging” in the last 24 hours is atrocious. I don’t consider what they do journalism after this. Not after what they’ve done to that poor Apple employee and withholding details of how they acquired the device that drew millions of viewers to their site this morning.
Update: Be sure to check out the New York Times’ post on the matter.