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The Apple v. Apple Confidential case is heating up as a California judge delivered a preliminary ruling last week ordering Mac rumor-writers to give up their sources, BusinessWeek reports. Apple argues that 'bloggers' aren't legitimate journalists, and the 'blogs' include PowerPage, AppleInsider and Think Secret. Some of the writers/publishers, such as Nick de Plume, are being defended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil rights group. Dan Gilmour, formerly of the San Jose Mercury, who now runs Grassroots Media, is quoted by BusinessWeek as saying, " "By [the judge's] bizarre and dangerous standard, I apparently stopped being a journalist the day I left my newspaper job after a quarter-century of writing for newspapers." Analysis: We agree with Gilmour. Jason D. O'Grady ran his PowerPage (in the 1990s, the # 1 PowerBook page in the world. Period) for years, starting around 1995, before moving on to Macworld. Speaking of which, does the good judge consider magazines (electronic or print) to be journalism? Home Beautiful? Fox News? Here's a gold standard: how many of the so-called 'bloggers' have been issued press passes to Apple or other tech events in, say, the last 12-24 months? O'Grady most likely has, IGM has (since 1995, we might add), and Nick de Plume, who works for the Harvard newspaper, probably qualifies. I've written for newspapers and have press accreditation - so what? Does that mean I can keep my sources confidential, while others can't? Any other judge with a modicum of common sense would toss this one right out.
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