Mercury News editorial: Apple ruling a victory for biz journalism

The San Jose Mercury News wrote an editorial about the recent appeals court ruling involving Apple Computer’s lawsuit attempting to force online news sources to divulge where they received confidential information about company products. An appeals court overturned a lower court’s decision, which would have forced the online news sites to divulge their sources.

The Mercury News editorial stated, “If allowed to stand, that ruling would have reduced business journalism to little more than the reprinting of press releases. Companies could have claimed trade-secret protections to threaten anyone who published information they didn’t want published.

“The San Jose-based 6th District Court of Appeal overturned Kleinberg’s ruling, and it extended the right to shield confidential sources to bloggers and online journalists. ‘The shied law is intended to protect the gathering and dissemination of news, and that is what the (online sites) did here,’ the court said.”

Read more here.