Gizmodo pulls prank – gets banned from CES

You may have heard about Gizmodogate, a practical joke a blogger at Gizmodo played on unsuspecting exhibitors at the recent CES show in Las Vegas. Basically, one of the bloggers at Gizmodo was given TV-B-Gone clickers and he chose to use it at the world’s largest gathering of tech-geekery by shutting off not only individual LCD TVs on display, but also a presentation being made by one of the exhibitors. While this may come across initially as good-spirited fun and Tom-Foolery, I look at it another way. To me it was a childish prank that not only affected the hard-working people working the targeted booths, not just the companies that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to show-off their latest wares, but may have completely ruined the reputation of all bloggers who take what they do seriously. And what’s worse is that Gizmodo appears to be proud of the act, publicizing it on their own site. As a blogger myself, I’ve worked hard to establish myself as a serious writer. Granted, this site is a hobby for me, something I do because I love to do it. But I also would like to think that you, my readers, and other Mac-related sites take me seriously. Maybe it’s just a fantasy and I’m just dreaming. But serious bloggers have been fighting the notion that they’re two-bit hacks not worthy of being called a “real” journalist for years. CES just this past year finally gave-in to bloggers everywhere, offering them media credentials for the event. What Gizmodo has done has validated their past thinking, that bloggers are nothing but a bunch of children playing games and are not to be taken seriously. While CES has banned the Gizmodo staffer from future CES events, and are considering further sanctions against Gizmodo and their parent company (Gawker Media), one can only guess that they will also restrict all bloggers further media access and acknowledgement in the future. Thanks Gizmodo. I hope the 15-minutes of fame was worth it to you. Again, this in no way truly affects my ability to write for my own site now, but who’s to say that it won’t in the future affect my ability to do so should I choose to attend and cover such an event? And while it doesn’t affect me now, it may affect other bloggers I respect that DO depend on these media credentials to do their job. And that would be a shame. I’m not going to sit here and beg you not to visit Gizmodo’s site. You should take advantage of any source of information you can on the internet. But I will say that I personally will not click the ads on Gizmodo anymore, and if this childish act bothers you in any way, I ask you to do the same. Punishing them financially is about all we as readers can do about it. Let’s just hope we don’t have a repeat at Macworld this week.