How not to interact with the media - Hashable CEO

The original article sounds quite juvenile, even if you think their idea is silly or not: http://www.betabeat.com/2011/03/17/hashable-is-worthless/

I like the part about how "“pivot” is start-up talk for “try to make something that’s at least a little less stupid than what you originally made”."

Hang on a minute. This is about an "op-ed" article that included quotes (as in, contained in quotation marks) that don't appear to accurate, investment advice (allegedly comical or otherwise), and outright derogatory comments (without any justification given). Moreover, the follow-up article republished private correspondence without permission, and is trying to justify its trash article based on some sort of journalistic high ground argument.

Frankly, while I wouldn't have put things the same way, I think the guys from Hashable have every right to be upset, and the web site that upset them is lucky not to be discovering the hard way why serious newspapers have a full time legal department. Their posts have been, IMNSHO, about one step in maturity about the five-year-old in the playground who says something really hurtful to another child, and then tries to make things better by saying "But I was only joking!".

Oh, and the blog post about the whole sorry affair seems to think that communications with journalists are somehow exempt from the usual rules regarding privacy, IP rights and, frankly, common courtesy. I suspect this is not a position that either responsible journalists or lawyers would agree with (as the former would have checked if they were on the record in a case of doubt, and the latter wouldn't assume their personal view trumped what the law actually says).

Does the person who wrote the linked blogpost (on spiers.tumblr.com) have any connection to the betabeat.com site that started this whole mess?

Just wasted five minutes : 1> Journalist trashes Hashable in satirically laced 'opinion' piece 2> Hashable CEO fails to see anything funny and calls journalist/s liar(s) 3> Journalist posts sections of CEO's emails in a follow-up article 4> CEO gets upset and ... the loop shall continue

From a comment at the end of the follow-up article put up by the blog in question.

I guess there will always be kids that want to build the sandcastles and the kids that just want to knock them over.