Follow the money: Apple, Zittrain and conflicts-of-interest

I'm sure he doesn't remember me but I was rather impressed meeting and listening to Jonathan Zittrain years ago when I was a technology reporter and was lucky enough to have an employer that would send me from time to time to meet some of tech's leading lights in Boston, Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

Politics has been my full-time beat for the last five years but I continue to follow, as I'm able, what Jonathan and other influential thinkers/writers in the tech space are up to (Incomplete list of others I try to keep up with: Accordion Guy, John Markoff, Dave Farber, Oxblood Ruffin, Michael Geist, Tara Calishain, David Weinberger, Mathew Ingram, David Isenberg, Mark Evans, Bill St. Arnaud …)

I give that as context as I point you to this blog post by Emily Brill hosted at The Daily Beast. Emily notes that Zittrain, who has been an influential critic of Apple Computer Inc., has received donations towards his work and the work of the Berkman Center at Harvard, which he co-founded, from Apple's competitors. Emily's piece is “this close” to sounding like sour grapes. She did not get a research job she wanted at Berkman but — kudos to her — she disclosed that fact in the piece. But while she discloses her potential bias, she reports that there was no disclosure when Microsoft picked up the tab for free lunches for Berkman seminar attendees. That's not right.

These are not insignificant observations. Even where there is no actual conflict-of-interest, the perception that there may be a conflict-of-interest is something that is to be avoided among journalists, academics, and others who are in the business of getting by on their wits. It's one reason I have had this disclaimer/explanation on my blog for several years now.

And it might be a good reason why the Berkman Center might want to be as upfront as possible about all of its funding sources.

UPDATE: A few hours after posting this, I received the following note from Larry D. Kramer, the Dean of Stanford Law School, who provides some more information on this issue:

To say that Professor Zittrain's class at Stanford was funded by a “special grant” from Microsoft is highly misleading. The class was an experimental and unusual arrangement that involved bringing Harvard students to Stanford for a special three-week joint class. It was arranged long before the grant from Microsoft was even in the works. The grant, in turn, was secured with room for discretionary uses and with no mention of the Zittrain class. We subsequently decided that we could use some of these resources to fund Zittrain's class, which was within its general terms. But while we did, as a courtesy, let Microsoft know later that we had used a portion of their grant for this purpose, we did not seek their permission. Nor did we inform either Professor Zittrain or the class of the source of funding, as it was irrelevant under the circumstances. Dinners for the three weeks were catered because to fit the course into this short time frame required meeting for many hours each evening, including through the dinner hours.