4 ms·

TechCrunch & The Dark Side Of Communities

20 points by ojbyrne 17y ago

epochwolf 17y ago
Title of the article is misleading. The post is about TechCrunch firing an intern for being paid to write a biased article about a company. The issue the author has is Tech Crunch didn't single out the company that bribed the intern instead they just pulled all the intern's article leaving 26 companies as possible bribers. Any credible journalism/news organization will take these measures to protect itself from the damage to it's readership and lawsuits. I don't know if I can agree with the author.
- eli 17y ago
  I completely disagree. Credible news organizations would certainly name the guilty party and provide whatever evidence they have that something unethical took place. They would also generally investigate each of the past articles by the author to check for problems. See, for example, Wired.com's handling of a reporter who fudged sources: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/05/67428 http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/05/67428 They hired a well-known investigative reporter for the sole purpose of checking the facts in all her past articles.
- ojbyrne 17y ago
  Not an intern.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  Techcrunch isn't really credible. And as for not releasing the names of the alleged companies, of course they didn't. Arrington doesn't want to alienate any potential advertisors or suckers^Hsuckers who might be willing to pay $5k to demo at one of his silly press rallies.
swombat 17y ago
Storm, meet teacup. Drama on the interwebs.
- ojbyrne 17y ago
  One wonders if you had been around in 1972 and heard about some arrests at the Watergate hotel if you'd have said the same thing. Perhaps it's a minor incident with no relation to anything. Or it could be the tip of the iceberg.
  - swombat 17y ago
    Hah, perhaps... Yet, I don't think that corruption at TechCrunch is quite as important as corruption at the very top of the US government... as much as it might seem to matter more to us :-) Then again, I guess an argument could be made both ways. Touché.
    - ojbyrne 17y ago
      Of course I don't think it's as important as Watergate, just that the analogy (that a minor transgression may be isolated or indicating an endemic problem) works. Hyperbole is a useful rhetorical device.
petercooper 17y ago
Arrington offers a fake mea culpa while erasing evidence as to who the guilty company could be and offering readers no insight into where exactly they were mislead. To me, that’s dishonest. That’s Arrington deciding that his connections are more important than his readers. Arrington is a lawyer by trade, so he knows it's dangerous to post unfounded allegations and hearsay that directly relate to people under his employ (publishing hearsay about other people's businesses, however, is journalistic privilege ;-)). Removing the actual posts shows more integrity than shuffling it all under the carpet. [..] because Michael Arrington won’t tell us which it was, every company on that list is now called into question. They are all potentially guilty Any company mentioned anywhere has "potentially" bribed someone to be mentioned. Lisa Barone, the author of this article, is potentially a hermaphrodite (statistically), but that doesn't mean I should publish an entire article about my wacky suspicion (which isn't really valid - other than this weird article, she seems an entirely lovely person).
- ojbyrne 17y ago
  Leaving existing stories in place isn't in any way dangerous to Arrington. They aren't either "unfounded allegations" nor hearsay. They may cause others to make unfounded allegations or rely on them as hearsay, but those are mistakes for others to make. On the second point, Arrington said that the person in question had accepted gifts for publishing stories in the past. So that's not "potential" - at least one of the companies mentioned actually bribed him.
  - petercooper 17y ago
    I was referring to his vague commenting on the issue, rather than the removal of stories - so I've amended my post to be a little clearer. But still.. surely pulling all of the stories off was a good move if, as you say, one/all/any of the stories posted by Daniel was payola of sorts. TechCrunch stories are woefully ephemeral, so pulling old stories off is just too easy. 99% of their value has been extracted, so it's easier for him, I guess, to just make it all go away.
pavs 17y ago
Anyone who thinks that _some_ of the TC post are not paid post are delusional. It just happens that the kid was doing it on his own (and got called out) without going through the TC heads.
cakesy 17y ago
Am I the only person who get really annoyed at people who say "could care less"? Not only does it make no sense, but where do these people get there phrases from? Do they just randomly parrot whatever they hear? Everytime I see this I literally rip my eyes out!

20 points by ojbyrne 17y ago

Title of the article is misleading. The post is about TechCrunch firing an intern for being paid to write a biased article about a company. The issue the author has is Tech Crunch didn't single out the company that bribed the intern instead they just pulled all the intern's article leaving 26 companies as possible bribers. Any credible journalism/news organization will take these measures to protect itself from the damage to it's readership and lawsuits. I don't know if I can agree with the author.

eli 17y ago
I completely disagree. Credible news organizations would certainly name the guilty party and provide whatever evidence they have that something unethical took place. They would also generally investigate each of the past articles by the author to check for problems. See, for example, Wired.com's handling of a reporter who fudged sources: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/05/67428 http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/05/67428 They hired a well-known investigative reporter for the sole purpose of checking the facts in all her past articles.
ojbyrne 17y ago
Not an intern.
dnsworks 17y ago
Techcrunch isn't really credible. And as for not releasing the names of the alleged companies, of course they didn't. Arrington doesn't want to alienate any potential advertisors or suckers^Hsuckers who might be willing to pay $5k to demo at one of his silly press rallies.

swombat 17y ago

Storm, meet teacup. Drama on the interwebs.

ojbyrne 17y ago
One wonders if you had been around in 1972 and heard about some arrests at the Watergate hotel if you'd have said the same thing. Perhaps it's a minor incident with no relation to anything. Or it could be the tip of the iceberg.
- swombat 17y ago
  Hah, perhaps... Yet, I don't think that corruption at TechCrunch is quite as important as corruption at the very top of the US government... as much as it might seem to matter more to us :-) Then again, I guess an argument could be made both ways. Touché.
  - ojbyrne 17y ago
    Of course I don't think it's as important as Watergate, just that the analogy (that a minor transgression may be isolated or indicating an endemic problem) works. Hyperbole is a useful rhetorical device.

petercooper 17y ago

Arrington offers a fake mea culpa while erasing evidence as to who the guilty company could be and offering readers no insight into where exactly they were mislead. To me, that’s dishonest. That’s Arrington deciding that his connections are more important than his readers. Arrington is a lawyer by trade, so he knows it's dangerous to post unfounded allegations and hearsay that directly relate to people under his employ (publishing hearsay about other people's businesses, however, is journalistic privilege ;-)). Removing the actual posts shows more integrity than shuffling it all under the carpet. [..] because Michael Arrington won’t tell us which it was, every company on that list is now called into question. They are all potentially guilty Any company mentioned anywhere has "potentially" bribed someone to be mentioned. Lisa Barone, the author of this article, is potentially a hermaphrodite (statistically), but that doesn't mean I should publish an entire article about my wacky suspicion (which isn't really valid - other than this weird article, she seems an entirely lovely person).

ojbyrne 17y ago
Leaving existing stories in place isn't in any way dangerous to Arrington. They aren't either "unfounded allegations" nor hearsay. They may cause others to make unfounded allegations or rely on them as hearsay, but those are mistakes for others to make. On the second point, Arrington said that the person in question had accepted gifts for publishing stories in the past. So that's not "potential" - at least one of the companies mentioned actually bribed him.
- petercooper 17y ago
  I was referring to his vague commenting on the issue, rather than the removal of stories - so I've amended my post to be a little clearer. But still.. surely pulling all of the stories off was a good move if, as you say, one/all/any of the stories posted by Daniel was payola of sorts. TechCrunch stories are woefully ephemeral, so pulling old stories off is just too easy. 99% of their value has been extracted, so it's easier for him, I guess, to just make it all go away.

pavs 17y ago

Anyone who thinks that _some_ of the TC post are not paid post are delusional. It just happens that the kid was doing it on his own (and got called out) without going through the TC heads.

cakesy 17y ago

Am I the only person who get really annoyed at people who say "could care less"? Not only does it make no sense, but where do these people get there phrases from? Do they just randomly parrot whatever they hear? Everytime I see this I literally rip my eyes out!