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TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
- kloncks 17y agoTo be very fair, I love how honest and forthcoming Mike was with this news. That was hard and he could have covered it up. To all the deniers and Mike-haters out there, I think this only goes to show the type of person he is. Also, I love how the identity of the intern wasn't disclosed. Not only does it allow him to make amends and learn from his mistakes, it also shows the level of professionalism that stems from TechCrunch.
- vaksel 17y agoscrew 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 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1102828
- fuzzmeister 17y agoWe all make mistakes as a teenager, often involving a lack of ethics. He just happened to do it in a very public way. As Michael said, hopefully he will learn from this situation.
- pvg 17y agoYou're making it sound like it's some sort of minor slip-up that happened to get publicized. Say you make a habit of accepting expensive dinners from a source who is interested in you writing about them. Or embellishing a story a little. Or say you even take a MacBook Air from a source at their suggestion. Those are lapses in ethical judgment. Running around repeatedly asking for people to give you stuff so you write about them is just being an outright slimeball.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- plinkplonk 17y ago"You're making it sound like it's some sort of minor slip-up that happened to get publicized." I think his point was (EDIT: I am just clarifying what I think his point was, not endorsing it) not that it was a "minor slipup" but that the person who committed this is a kid and not an adult (17 is a bit borderline but still pretty young)and he is asking for some compassion and discretion. At least that is how I read it. fwiw, I have no position on the matter but I tend to a (purely subjective) viewpoint he has been punished enough.
- jacquesm 17y agoThere 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, what's your call, should I out the publication ? The person doing the canvassing ? I've been wondering about what to do with this. As for the way this 'kid' (I'm putting that in quotes because if you are smart enough to ask for computers worth quite a bit of money you are smart enough to understand there are consequences if you get caught) has behaved, the other side to that story is those companies that did not get written about because they refused to play ball. We're not talking about an accident or an oversight here, but at a deliberate attempt at fraud, and not a one-off but part of a pattern. I don't see even being fired and having to return the goods to his employer who will presumably re-imburse the people that 'paid' for it is a punishment, that leaves him at '0'. TC is handling this as good as they can after the fact, but before you give someone access to the editorial process don't you at least read them the riot act as to what the consequences will be if they do something like this? Just like the 'real' newspapers companies like TC wield some power and it is important to make sure that everybody that is in on the process knows exactly where the line is. If TC did make it clear in advance what is permissible I'm sympathetic to naming the guy, if not then probably not. The key bit in Mikes post is this: > on at least one other occasion So, how often did that happen ? Once ? Twice ? More ?? If more then outing the guy looks reasonable, if it is once or twice then again, probably not. I'm sympathetic with vaksels gut reaction, but slow down a bit and let's get some more data before making that call. TC has their opinion, that's fine, we're all adults and reasonably smart cookies here, I'd like to be able to trust what I read is not coloured in any way and what Mike is doing is as much damage control on behalf of TC as it is an exercise in ethics after the fact. Let's hear him out on how he has posted guidelines about how his writers should behave. No policy -> TC bad, no matter how they spin it now, Yes policy -> kid gets outed, but only if this happened more than the 2 times that we're sure about. I think that's fairly reasonable.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- astrec 17y ago(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.
- jacquesm 17y ago> -> 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.
- astrec 17y agoToo right. Production root passwords had a planetary theme - where planetary means one of the giants in our solar system - not hard for a nosey and curious kid to take a peek at any system they wanted.
- aresant 17y agoDeleting 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.
- jacquesm 17y agoExactly. It's actually written in Mike's piece as some kind of afterthought, the legal stuff came first.
- aaronblohowiak 17y agoMike used to be a lawyer, so that shouldn't be a surprise
- dbz 17y agoWhy weren't the people/person(s) who gave him the compensation fired as well? They enabled him and are just as guilty in my opinion.
- acangiano 17y agoPresumably the compensation came from startups willing to pay to be featured.
- spicyj 17y agoI believe it was not TechCrunch staff who paid him - it was outside firms who wanted to be promoted on a high-traffic technology blog.
- kloncks 17y ago...how does this make sense? what outside firm was promoted on techcrunch through this news breaking?
- dannyr 17y agoIt takes 2 to tango. If the intern was punished, the company that bribed him should also be punished.
- staunch 17y agoI was never this dumb about stuff like this, but I was just as dumb about other stuff. I'd give him a second chance.
- jacquesm 17y agoI'd fire his sorry ass and make him cough up the details about each and every story he's written in the past, and I would have yanked those where there was interference but I would have left the rest because those companies already written about by this character do not need to be punished if they were in the clear. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. And I'd make very sure that every other member of the reporting staff realizes their ass is grass in case of a repetition. If it would have been once that would be one thing, but twice and possibly more is definitely grounds for termination. The only thing that put a stop to this is that Arrington was approached directly by a person that he trusts, and the threat of someone scooping TC on their sloppy ethics (as if that's news).
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- patio11 17y agoIn the full knowledge that this opinion will be unpopular: the crime here is not selling coverage. The crime here is selling coverage obviously while being an intern. The media, including Techcrunch, sells coverage as a matter of routine. Sure, we'd be happy to cover your new gadget, but we'll need an exclusive on that. The exclusive will be worth, at the margin, 50,000 uniques we won't lose to Endgadget (and the attendant link equity we'll get for being first, and possibly mainstream media attention). The CPM for this blog is $10. But $500 in an envelope on the table, that is totally different. That makes us feel like we're selling coverage.
- staunch 17y ago1) How much is "exclusivity" worth? Could you sell the story of your product launch to anyone? 2) Are you really providing much of anything to TC with your exclusive in terms of traffic? They drive traffic to you, not the other way around.
- patio11 17y agoExclusivity is apparently worth an embargo. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/23/the-last-has-fallen-the-embargo-is-dead/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/23/the-last-has-fallen-the... As the old saying goes, after that we're just dickering about the price.
- staunch 17y agoYou're claiming it's worth in the neighborhood of $500. If it's actually only worth $5 that's a big difference. No reasonable person believes TC can be bought for $5. My guess is that exclusivity is more of an ego thing than anything else. Competitive people like to win, and in journalism that means scooping the competition. TC might make just as much money, with or without an exclusive (give or take a few dollars). If true, all you're doing by giving an exclusive is feeding their ego. That's hardly the same as handing over a $2k laptop.
- jacquesm 17y ago
- pavs 17y agoDrama and TechCrunch goes hand in hand.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- shaayak 17y agodamn 30 points in 15 minutes!
- johnl87 17y agoThis is what happens when you expect people to work for you for free.
- aberman 17y agoReally? This is what happens when you pay interns with awesome experience, rather than cash?
- johnl87 17y agoYou're selling that as if it were so hard to get experience and get paid at the same time. I know this won't be popular, but Microsoft pays interns more than most people get paid hourly.
- drusenko 17y agoand the amount of networking and exposure available to you working as a writing intern at techcrunch is invaluable. i'm not sure why everyone gets in a twist over free interships -- nobody's forcing you to participate. if everybody thought it was a rip-off, nobody would apply, and employers would be forced to pay the interns. the fact is that the competition for an internship is so intense, that TC is giving a net benefit to the person who works there, even though they aren't getting paid monetarily.
- dannyr 17y agoComparing Microsoft to Techcrunch? Have you looked at how much money each company has in the bank?
- Aleran 17y agoAs a former Techcrunch intern I can attest that they do pay their interns. He may have been an exception though.
- dnsworks 17y agoI have to ask, how is this any different from TechCrunch writing glowing posts about companies that spend many thousands of dollars per month on advertising? Or singing the praises of the lame startups that pay thousands of dollars to annoy people in the "Demo Pit" of TechCrunch 50? TechCrunch isn't a newspaper, it's a blog, and an overly sensational one at that.
- whalesalad 17y agoI'm pretty sure the intern was Daniel Brusilovsky... he tweeted about "writing the hardest email he's ever had to write" and all his posts are 404'ing on TC. The tweet of his: http://twitter.com/danielbru/status/8523812779 http://twitter.com/danielbru/status/8523812779
- tlrobinson 17y agohttp://www.techcrunch.com/author/danielbru/ http://www.techcrunch.com/author/danielbru/ vs. http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:x9DbW8_sb1sJ:www.techcrunch.com/author/danielbru/+http://www.techcrunch.com/author/danielbru/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:x9DbW8_sb1sJ:www.techcru...
- mikeyur 17y agoThis was a friend of mine, really feeling bad for him. One mistake and he's paying for it. Fortunately it will eventually fade away. Edit: http://twitter.com/loic/status/8666998987 http://twitter.com/loic/status/8666998987 - Loic gave some good advice, I can't get ahold of him but hopefully he'll take it.
- jacquesm 17y agoI'm all for that, and also for owning up completely as to how often this happened. TC yanking the content to avoid tainting is one thing but it would be good to know what the extent of this is. Another thing that bothers me about this is that I can't see how a 17 year old given the keys to the kingdom would come up with such a scheme, that's hardly the first thing that crosses your mind when you start your career. If the first instance of this was initiated by the company written about then that would change my whole idea about this.
- joshfinnie 17y agoSee, I have a different view on this. I am not faulting the intern at all, it is really the company that wanted the write-up. If you are going to bribe someone at TechCrunch, who do you contact: Mike A. or an intern? I think the intern's response was a good start to what is going to be some time before his reputation is back to normal, but I think we need to see who this company was and blame fault there.
- jacquesm 17y agoMichael, your apology is meaningless without a very clear statement that you have learned something too, and that is not evident from your post. If TC has posted guidelines on how its editors should behave and this person transgressed those guidelines then that's one thing. But if TC does NOT have posted guidelines it would be comforting to know that those will be put in place after this incident, and that you will make those guidelines public. Your lesson is that you can't just give anybody access to the TC cms without making sure they have their obligations and the consequences of transgressions spelled out. Transparency is not spilling the beans after the fact (that's just damage control), it is making sure that the rules are known by all parties.
- dreyfiz 17y agoYou don't need posted guidelines to know that this behavior is wrong.
- jacquesm 17y agoTo know not, but to not have such guidelines in place for your editorial board/writers makes it vague what is allowed and what is not. So that's why every professional organization spells it out explicitly. Attempts to give items worth in excess of 'x' are to be reported to management, all gifts beyond a ball-point pen or a base-ball cap are to be refused. That sort of thing. Have read here: http://www.nytco.com/press/ethics.html http://www.nytco.com/press/ethics.html For how it is done in a real news outlet.
- wheels 17y agoTranscribing common sense into policy is not the way to get more common sense.
- jacquesm 17y agoLeaving 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.
- dannyr 17y agoI know he must be protected in some way because he's not of legal age but I do not agree with deleting all his posts. The writer has written several blog posts about milestones of important startups. I feel like I'm losing a sense of history here (though we can still find it on other blogs, google cache, etc). Here are some of his articles that do not exists anymore: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/23/twitter-acquires-mixer-labs/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/23/twitter-acquires-mixer-... http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/26/square-angels-mayer-crowley-fannin/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/26/square-angels-mayer-cro...
- zaidf 17y agoStupider(read: more damaging) things are done by 17 year old kids everyday. Heck, I can't even share mine and at the time it happend I just wanted to lock myself in a room. But it taught me a lesson that I pretty much apply a few times everyday. When the dust settles, pick yourself up and tell yourself "I'll never be that stupid again". It's been a few yrs but I still tell myself that and it usually does wonders in knocking some sense into yourself.
- Psyonic 17y agoWhile I'm sure you're right that stupider things are done by 17 year old kids everyday, the same thing could be said about 25 year olds...
- minouye 17y agoI'm reminded of the whole tiff between Arrington and Leo Laporte. Irony anyone? http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/06/ouch/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/06/ouch/
- jmintz 17y agoDan's apology: http://www.danielbru.com/2010/02/the-line-was-crossed/ 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.
- aresant 17y ago"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.
- seldo 17y agoIt'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.
- jakarta 17y agoConsidering 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.
- ugh 17y agoOne year shy of being an adult? I've met 18 year olds and they are not adults. Give him a break. And a second chance. Only call him a serial offender if he actually is one. Do you really believe that he should be punished for life ("no one will do business with him again")? What a fucked up attitude is that?
- noarchy 17y agoThat must be what they call "tough love" in the US. Plus, you get the added benefit of looking tough versus those naughty rule breakers. And who doesn't want to look tough?
- jacquesm 17y agoWell, according to Arringtons post he already is a serial offender, at least two instances, possibly more.
- jstevens85 17y agoI don't think this is a major lapse in judgement. It's standard practice for newspapers/magazines to ask for a certain number of pages of advertisements in exchange for a feature article. In fact, I know that for many smaller trade magazines, the articles are actually written by the marketing staff of the featured company.
- terpua 17y agoHere's a link to the now unreachable post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/05/AR2010020500146.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02...
- noarchy 17y agoYou think this teen was influenced by what he saw around him? Media people get freebies and perks all the time. Was this kid's mistake in the fact that he asked for them? Or that he got caught doing so?
- rjurney 17y agoHe's 17. Think of the dumbest thing you did at 17. Now imagine it made TechCrunch. What a joke.
- gte910h 17y agohttp://www.hhs.gov/opa/familylife/annualconfabstracts/brain_dvt_white_paper.pdf http://www.hhs.gov/opa/familylife/annualconfabstracts/brain_... Folks, he's 17. This is a 17 year olds type of mistake. His brain isn't fully developed yet. In a past era, it would have just been covered up.
- lucifer 17y ago"In a past era" a 17 year old male would have been a married man with children and serious social responsibilities.
- mronge 17y agoI want to add that he wrote a post about my company and product (Rocketbox, http://www.getrocketbox.com http://www.getrocketbox.com), but ABSOLUTELY NO COMPENSATION CHANGED HANDS. I would think that most of the companies he wrote about are in a similar situation, where they did nothing wrong but their article has also been deleted. I hope he learns from this, and it kinda sucks my article is gone.