Gizmodo Staying Quiet on iPhone Investigation

By Ethan Lee on April 29, 2010

The gadget web site, Gizmodo, owned by Gawker media, is officially staying quiet as it is being spread thin under the microscope of California lawmen who raided the home of their editor, Jason Chen.

Instead of chatting about the ongoing investigation, which should come naturally to Gizmodo’s blogging crew, the site is allowing others to speak on their behalf and they are only posting the rants and raves that favor their view point.

After days of silence on the issue, a post was finally published titled, “The Investigation Into That Missing iPhone.”

The post read: “As most of you know by now, police entered Jason Chen's home, seizing his computers and gadgets. While the investigation's in process, we can't comment much on this. We stand by our colleague and our coverage of the lost iPhone. “

The post went on to recap Gizmodo’s stories on Apple’s iPhone 4 and how Gizmodo came to acquire it.

The post ended with, “Since this is a legal issue and we can't respond to comments, we are turning them off in this post.”

As with most bloggers, they can dish it but can’t take the heat from commenters who in previous posts called Gizmodo’s explanations on the purchase of the iPhone into question. Originally Gizmodo’s Jason Chen did not bother to explain that they paid $5,000 for the allegedly stolen device.

Gizmodo’s readers were also surprised and upset that Jason Chen was so quick to “out” the Apple employee who initially lost the iPhone prototype. Many readers considered it classless and unnecessary.

Regardless of what Gizmodo’s actual base may think of them now, others are siding with Gizmodo. Comedy Central’s main funny guy, John Stewart weighed in on the matter recently:

In a respectful move, Gizmodo’s main competitor, Engadget, has offered only passing mention of the issue and continues to report on relevant tech news, despite being involved in the incident. Engadget had been offered the same deal that Gizmodo jumped at.