http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/12/technology/12blog.html?_r=...

"[The ruling]... focused on the notion that the published information included trade secrets and was essentially stolen property."

"Minimizing harm" is one of the basic precepts of journalism, and journalists withold documents all the time for a variety of very good reasons.

I have no disillusions that this is not real news. Twitter internal memos are not headline news. But how much of TechCrunch really is? Sure we get some headlines about upcoming features in Apple or Microsoft or Google. But in the big scale of things, it's never going to replace CNN, Reuters or BBC.

Arrington wrote that they are not posting ones that are tabloid-esque in their nature to embarass. So he is attempting to manage the damage while still doing what he does - generate revenue by utilizing what information he is given.

I don't know what files they withheld. My point is that, had the hacker sent this to a real news agency rather than TC, they would have published docs too.

And I wager the discussion on the forums would be more centered around the content rather than the fact that TC dared publish papers.

Lastly, my main thing is this: How is publishing this information different than beating the other sites to news about Apple's big announcement the next day? The information was acquired from an unauthorized source (as most leaks are.)

And my point is, I'm not so sure you're right. Unless there's actually something newsworthy contained in the documents, I think only the sleaziest news outlets would publish any details at all beyond perhaps the fact that there had been a break-in.

For example, http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/02/business/who-me-print-a-le...

Give me a break, your page view doesn't mean a thing.

(guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)