I'm reminded of the whole tiff between Arrington and Leo Laporte. Irony anyone?
TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
71–80 of 108 posts
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Leaving common sense to the judgment of 17 year olds is a great way to find out that not everybody has common sense. You do it for their protection too.
If you're old enough to be writing professional articles at a major news source, you're old enough to know that asking for goodies in exchange for articles is not ok. I can't imagine that he was confused on whether or not this was acceptable; he just made a bad choice and got caught. The typical errors of young-adulthood are not those of moral incompetence, but simple bad judgement.
That depends on how it all got started.
If he initiated this kind of behaviour then I'm with you. If he was approached by a company first and they promised him some goodies in exchange for a write-up with the note that 'everybody does it' then you get in to a gray area.
After that he's definitely not in the clear for not going higher up and asking his boss about this, and TC is not in the clear for not spelling this sort of stuff out to journalists and interns alike.
As for ethics, TC reaps what it sows.
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are two sides to this story. Let me ask this question, because it seems it needs asking: 1) has anybody here ever been approached by other 'writers' who will do a write-up in exchange for goodies ? 2) has anybody here been approached by writers to post links under their HN username ? The second has definitely happened to me, the first was so oblique that it might be my misunderstanding. But I'm fairly surprised…
*... has anybody here been approached by writers to post links under their HN username ? [This] has definitely happened to me..." Really? That's awful. Ha - I've been making comments around saying that people shouldn't be outing the intern. But now I'm dying to ask you who it was. Maybe if the person's real identity can't be guessed from the username...? Jeez, I don't know. This sucks; I'm going to bed. Figure out th…
I've made the question in to a poll:
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
screw that, unethical behavior like this needs to be exposed...if Mike won't say who it is, I will: if you want to know who it is go here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1102828
(Some) Stupid stuff I did as a 17 year old: -> Deleted /var on a production system I had no right touching at a Fortune 500. -> Drove my dad's car into a fence. Unlicensed. -> Stole the street sign for Cobain St. -> Plagiarised a philosophy essay (Hegel). -> etc. etc. etc. Seventeen year old kids mess up. Seventeen year old kids grow up. Go easy tiger.
> -> Deleted /var on a production system I had no right touching at a Fortune 500.
The 'you had no right touching' bit should have been 'you should have no possibility to touch'.
Whoever administered that systems shares part of the blame, you have done it, but they should have never let you get within spitting distance of a terminal capable of doing that.
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#75Dan's apology: http://www.danielbru.com/2010/02/the-line-was-crossed/
I haven't ever met the guy, but much worse things are done by 17-year-olds all the time. The punishment he is receiving seems adequate to me. Hopefully he learns from it, this post is a good first step.
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#76Dan's apology: http://www.danielbru.com/2010/02/the-line-was-crossed/ I haven't ever met the guy, but much worse things are done by 17-year-olds all the time. The punishment he is receiving seems adequate to me. Hopefully he learns from it, this post is a good first step.
"In some way or another, a line was crossed that should have never been"
The "in some way or another" part I dont like, the rest is heartfelt.
But maybe there's another side of the story.
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#77It's a shame to hear this about Dan; I'd read about him before this incident in regards to his involvement with Teens in Tech. He's a very impressive individual and hopefully this is just a minor incident of letting his success get the better of him.
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#78Considering he is just 1 year shy of being an adult, I don't buy the 'kids make mistakes' argument. The intern really must be devoid of ethics if he wants to extort laptops out of start ups that are hoping for press. The fact that it had also occurred one other time is more disturbing, it means that this was not some momentary ethical lapse but a real attempt to receive bribes.
I don't really understand how anyone can defend that kind of behavior here. With any luck, his reputation will be ruined and no one will do business with him again. He'll issue an apology - and why not, he has nothing to lose right?
From my experience, people with poor ethics tend to be serial offenders. There was a kid at my high school that was caught doctoring his transcript in hopes of getting into an ivy league school. He was caught and apologized. Earlier this year, as a senior in college, he was caught again -- this time forging e-mails from recruiters to create leverage for a better job opportunity on Wall Street.
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Bob Smith creates a tablet computer which runs Flash and cures cancer tomorrow, that has some news value N1 and some pageview value P1. If a particular media outlet gets an exclusive on that announcement, then it has news value N2 and pageview value P2. delta(N1, N2) is zero -- it is still news tomorrow no matter how many people report it. (See: iPad, which was apparently a story of staggering importance despite h…
The difference between being paid to cover something and covering something in return for an exclusive is that in the latter case your readers benefit as well. Even if your only criterion in deciding what to print was how newsworthy it was, you'd still be more likely to print a story if you'd been given an exclusive.
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Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Deleting the guy's account and leading with "Our attorneys have advised us not to disclose the name . . ." indicates that keeping his identity secret was very low priority. Expect a public apology from the kid in the next 24hrs.
Exactly. It's actually written in Mike's piece as some kind of afterthought, the legal stuff came first.
Mike used to be a lawyer, so that shouldn't be a surprise