Apple to help resolve dispute between Foxconn, journalists

Apple is working to resolve a legal dispute between iPod manufacturer Foxconn and two Chinese journalists who are being sued for writing about labor conditions at Foxconn’s iPod factory. “Apple is working behind the scenes to help resolve this issue,” an Apple spokesman, Jill Tan, said. As previously reported, Foxconn has filed a defamation lawsuit against a reporter and an editor at the China Business News, claiming their story on the poor working and living conditions at the company’s Chinese iPod factory tarnished Foxconn’s reputation. The iPod manufacturer also got local courts to freeze the personal assets of the two journalists. Reporters Without Borders, a Chinese media and a journalists’ advocacy group, criticized Foxconn’s suit and urged Apple to intercede, going as far as sending an open letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs asking that he take action.