Ethics of Online Journalism

A hacker bypasses company security, steals confidential company information, and emails information obtained to it’s competitors and the press. Is it ethical to then post that information as “news”?

That’s the question posited today at Tech Crunch which is using a bunch of information it ‘acquired’ from a hacker as the basis of several blog posts on Twitter. Twitter as you know probably the hottest thing to hit the web since Facebook. My question isn’t whether or not this is ethical, it’s definitely ‘on the line’. The question is, would it make TechCrunch a suspect in the crime itself? I’m not suggesting they had anything to do with it, I have no idea, but clearly they stand to gain (from traffic, the ‘edge’ of braking a story as a news source, etc.) Beyond that, it’s valuable information, and anyone directly benefiting from it would essentially become a suspect. According to TC, the information received included “hundreds of confidential corporate and personal documents of Twitter and Twitter employees…ranging from executive meeting notes, partner agreements and financial projections to the meal preferences, calendars and phone logs of various Twitter employees.” Obviously, valuable information.

Here’s the bigger question, is information acquired through a crime fair game for the media? If someone breaks into someone else’s house, steals something from someone and gives it to me, is it okay for me to use said item knowing full well where it came from and how it was acquired? Does that make me complicit in the original crime itself? When it comes to tangible items, I know exactly what it means but what about IP? TechCrunch defends their decision as such:

We publish confidential information almost every day on TechCrunch. This is stuff that is also “stolen,” usually leaked by an employee or someone else close to the company, and the company is very much opposed to its publication. In the past we’ve received comments that this is unethical. And it certainly was unethical, or at least illegal or tortious, for the person who gave us the information and violated confidentiality and/or nondisclosure agreements. But on our end, it’s simply news.

If you disagree with that, ok. But then you also have to disagree with the entire history of the news industry. “News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising,” is something Lord Northcliffe, a newspaper magnate, supposedly said. I agree wholeheartedly.

I dunno if I buy that, in this particular case. Or, as one user named Tom worded it:

This is an asshole move.