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Michael Arrington: Editorial Independence

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Re: Michael Arrington: Editorial Independence

#11

Post by petercooper »

hollerith wrote: post #6

This makes me suspect that Arrington is one of those people who every now and then digs in his heels and has a complete inability to see things from his opponent's point of view. For example, here he does not even bother to address what seems to me to be the central issue (journalistic conflict of interest).

The "journalist conflict of interest" is something for individual journalists to disclose. The true central issue here is the promise (which may even have been made under contract) of editorial independence for TechCrunch. If the writers then fail to disclose conflicts of interest, that's an ethical position for then, not now.

Re: Michael Arrington: Editorial Independence

#12

Post by aresant »

Arrington & Armstrong created CrunchFund as partners and the controversy is purely Arrington's doing.

This latest breathlessly pissed off post demonstrates Arrington can still post anything he likes to TechCrunch.

So why not write a clear and concise explanation on TC to begin with?

I'd submit that Arrington is ready to leave TC to focus on investing, and there's no better way to do that than with a massive page-view heavy controversy.

Re: Michael Arrington: Editorial Independence

#16

Post by toddmorey »

Slimy wrote: post #5

I wonder how much of this whole brouhaha was staged.

I was just going to post the same comment! 1) Quietly and privately agree on his role, then 2) stage a public melodrama for traffic, and finally 3) bring the drama to a resolution favorable to both TC and AOL. That's worth at least 4 or 5 record-traffic articles if played right. (I'm usually not this cynical, but then again, this is TechCrunch.)

Re: Michael Arrington: Editorial Independence

#17

Post by jrockway »

rationalbeats wrote: post #13

So instead of writing this message in an email to the powers at be at AOL, he writes a blog post about it, which is certain to escalate the situation? Why?

Page views. This is TechCrunch we're talking about. Nobody actually wants to read it, so they have to resort to tactics like this in order to get anyone to look at their site.

Re: Michael Arrington: Editorial Independence

#18

Post by nknight »

rationalbeats wrote: post #13

So instead of writing this message in an email to the powers at be at AOL, he writes a blog post about it, which is certain to escalate the situation? Why?

This was already being played out in public. It's a PR battle, and Arrington thrives in massive public fights, while AOL has always been the big clumsy giant that can't find its ass with both hands.

I think a better question is why wouldn't he want it to escalate?

Re: Michael Arrington: Editorial Independence

#19

Post by zackbelow »

rationalbeats wrote: post #13

So instead of writing this message in an email to the powers at be at AOL, he writes a blog post about it, which is certain to escalate the situation? Why?

I am sure he has written and said many things to AOL at this point. He is grumpy, rich and thinks AOL crossed major boundary lines that were part of their original agreement. At this point, he knows that he can either:

a) Get AOL to bow down to his rants (Charlie Sheen anyone?) and "reimplement" those boundaries. Basically he wants to stick it to the man that gave him 30 million to prove hes bigger than the man.

b) buy TC back from AOL, probably for half as much as they paid.

Inside I am sure he is thinkin this is awesome cuz either way dude walks away with 8 bajillion dollars, synonymous popularity in tech world and every chance in the world to start another uber blog/mediacompany/empire.

Plus, he can pull a Steve Jobs even if he does quit, and resurrect the company at any time he wants to after AOL buries it and Ariana becomes Co-Editor..

Re: Michael Arrington: Editorial Independence

#20

Post by anonfortc »

This is so much fun. It seems that we now have a fight between two divas -- Arrington and Huffington. It is one of those fights where you do not care who wins, you just hope for lots of bloodshed. It's like a Raiders Broncos game!

So Mike Arrington makes a stand for editorial independence. Now for those of you new to this whole discussion, we should note that Mike editorial independence Arrington started this whole brouhaha by the obvious and blatant conflicts of interest he got himself in. Namely he was investing in companies he covers and now is starting a fund that would seem to be dedicated to investing in companies he covers.

After the ny times called him out on the conflict, it was obvious that TechCrunch's claim of it being an independent news source would be utterly laughable. And that probably prompted Ariana to make her move.

And now Arrington is making a bold stand by resigning in the name of "editorial independence". Probably he did not have a choice but to resign, not because of editorial independence from Ariana Huffington, but because of editorial independence from his own conflicts of interest. But by making this stand he very cleverly tried to divert the attention from his own fuckups and poison the waters for whoever Ariana tries to appoint to lead TechCrunch.

Now I would like to say I am not on Ariana's side. I wanted to point out the blatant hypocracy of Arringrton, but Ariana's career is so full of double dealing and questionable behavior that I doubt TechCrunch would be better with her. Like I said, it is the Raiders playing the Broncos, and I am not choosing sides just enjoying the violence.

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