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Sure but that has conflict of interest all over it, and while Arrington can be as conflicted as he likes... ...a) people don't have to read TC and as the level

by dotBen 15y ago

Sure but that has conflict of interest all over it, and while Arrington can be as conflicted as he likes... ...a) people don't have to read TC and as the level of conflictedness for that site increases more and more people will stop reading it ...b) the conflict is at odds with Aol's wider aspiration to be a respected media outlet (Arriana Huffington, etc). At some point such 'exposure for self interest' will cross a line even Aol won't go - esp if they don't have some/any upside in the CrunchFund venture. The worse situation is that you end up with Arrington as an investor and TC can't write about you because Aol decides it really is too much of a conflict. And other outlets won't write about you or they give you shit because they still perceive Arrington as a competitor. Worst of both worlds.

coderdude 15y ago
I agree that he should be careful about the editorial conflict of interest issue. This is assuming he hasn't already cleared it with AOL. I do think that it is a conflict of interest, but in a similar sense that HN is run by YC and an inordinate amount of YC startup news is poured through here. I'm not saying that PG et al are causing this to happen directly, but it is not a coincidence. I think the point I'm trying to make here is that you can't scold Arrington without acknowledging that this already happens -- either directly or indirectly.
- cube13 15y ago
  >...in a similar sense that HN is run by YC and an inordinate amount of YC startup news is poured through here. The difference being that YC doesn't try to hide it at all on HN. YC ads cannot be commented on, and YC related stories are(generally) noted in the titles. HN is essentially an advertising channel for both YC and YC funded companies. The problem is that Techcrunch has positioned itself as a news reporting site, not Michael Arrington's Super Startup Investment Blog(tm). So it should be held to a higher standard than YC, especially when it comes to investments. At the bare minimum, I think that Arrington should(assuming he doesn't leave TC to work on this) disclose his fund's involvement in anything that TC is covering. This goes not only for his personal articles, but anything that any TC reporter is covering.
  - coderdude 15y ago
    He does say "The easiest way for me to handle this is to be up front about all of these investments and disclose it in posts, which I've done and will continue to do..." So at the very least he has acknowledged that disclosure is important.
philwelch 15y ago
the conflict is at odds with Aol's wider aspiration to be a respected media outlet (Arriana Huffington, etc). What? Huffington Post, if you ever read it, is a left wing tabloid. It's filled with leftist propaganda, celebrity gossip, bad-women's-magazine style nonsense, and other crappy linkbaiting. Buying out Huffington is no way for Aol to become a "respected media outlet", it's a way for Aol to become a media outlet in the style of News Corp. Yes, by traditional journalistic standards Arrington's fund would be a massive conflict of interest. But traditional journalistic standards are all but dead. And frankly, the only new development in the past decade is that people are no longer pretending otherwise.

by dotBen 15y ago

coderdude 15y ago

I agree that he should be careful about the editorial conflict of interest issue. This is assuming he hasn't already cleared it with AOL. I do think that it is a conflict of interest, but in a similar sense that HN is run by YC and an inordinate amount of YC startup news is poured through here. I'm not saying that PG et al are causing this to happen directly, but it is not a coincidence. I think the point I'm trying to make here is that you can't scold Arrington without acknowledging that this already happens -- either directly or indirectly.

cube13 15y ago
>...in a similar sense that HN is run by YC and an inordinate amount of YC startup news is poured through here. The difference being that YC doesn't try to hide it at all on HN. YC ads cannot be commented on, and YC related stories are(generally) noted in the titles. HN is essentially an advertising channel for both YC and YC funded companies. The problem is that Techcrunch has positioned itself as a news reporting site, not Michael Arrington's Super Startup Investment Blog(tm). So it should be held to a higher standard than YC, especially when it comes to investments. At the bare minimum, I think that Arrington should(assuming he doesn't leave TC to work on this) disclose his fund's involvement in anything that TC is covering. This goes not only for his personal articles, but anything that any TC reporter is covering.
- coderdude 15y ago
  He does say "The easiest way for me to handle this is to be up front about all of these investments and disclose it in posts, which I've done and will continue to do..." So at the very least he has acknowledged that disclosure is important.

philwelch 15y ago

the conflict is at odds with Aol's wider aspiration to be a respected media outlet (Arriana Huffington, etc). What? Huffington Post, if you ever read it, is a left wing tabloid. It's filled with leftist propaganda, celebrity gossip, bad-women's-magazine style nonsense, and other crappy linkbaiting. Buying out Huffington is no way for Aol to become a "respected media outlet", it's a way for Aol to become a media outlet in the style of News Corp. Yes, by traditional journalistic standards Arrington's fund would be a massive conflict of interest. But traditional journalistic standards are all but dead. And frankly, the only new development in the past decade is that people are no longer pretending otherwise.