Gizmodo Shells Out $20K For iPhone Scoop

Monday, 26 April 2010 | by Pat's Picks

Should publishers pay for scoops? That’s the subject David Carr was prompted to write about in his New York Times column this morning after learning that, all in, Gizmodo paid about $20,000 for its scoop on the new iPhone. Granted, it was a scoop that brought the site 3.6 million unique visitors. Says Publisher Nick Denton: ?It?s hardly surprising that Web journalists should be fast, competitive, ruthless, sensationalist ? and willing to do most anything for the story.? Carr likens the battle for clicks to TV ratings and warns while ratings made TV a “dominant ad medium,” they also “made it a lot dumber than it might have been.”

Denton says he paid $5000 for the actual phone but with legal fees and the extra bandwidth he needed, the initial figure multiplied quickly. Despite the fact that Gizmodo pre-sells its advertising and didn’t reallymake a killing on clicks, Denton says he gained something priceless with the scoop: free marketing.

Read our original post about Apple’s lost iPhone

Original Gizmodo Post about the lost iPhone

And here‘s a follow up letter from Apple, which more or less confirms that the phone is legit.