Those of you who are regular readers of the Gizmodo blog should not be surprised by this information.  Those of you who aren’t, allow me to fill you in.  Gizmodo sent some of their staff to CES this year and those people proceeded to play pranks on various vendors at the show.

This is actually a perfect example of what one should not do when attending a trade show with valid media credentials.  The Gizmodo staff used one of those "TV B Gone" devices to shut down various TVs/flat panel displays and even interrupted a presentation taking place in the Motorola section.

They may have gotten away with it provided they did not write a post about it complete with video of said pranks.

Well, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) isn’t happy, not one bit and has therefore banned the person(s) responsible and their little dog, too, from attending future CES events.  Further action may be taken against Gimzodo and its parent company, the details of which are being worked out.

Webware received a statement from the CEA stating,

"We have been informed of inappropriate behavior on the show floor by a credentialed media attendee from the Web site Gizmodo, owned by Gawker Media. Specifically, the Gizmodo staffer interfered with the exhibitor booth operations of numerous companies, including disrupting at least one press event. The Gizmodo staffer violated the terms of CES media credentials and caused harm to CES exhibitors. This Gizmodo staffer has been identified and will be barred from attending any future CES events. Additional sanctions against Gizmodo and Gawker Media are under discussion."

Not to be outdone, Gizmodo editor, Brian Lam posted a response at ValleyWag under comment number 6 he basically says they will never do things the way Cnet or other sites of that sort do things because then they would not be Gizmodo.  He compares Gizmodo to Crave and doesn’t think Motorola should be so "emotionally disturbed" over the issue and while it’s not quite an apology it’s probably the best you will get from Gizmodo,

"Motorola, well that was a mistake, as my explicit orders to my video person were to not interrupt press conferences. But that is for me and Moto to sort out."

So now there are some open spots for CES, well, maybe you’ll be seeing some TECH.BLORGE.com staff there next year.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 9:03 am under Uncategorized.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.
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