On some level I see it as a willful misreading. On the one hand, TechCrunch has every right to refuse money. On the other hand, this PR firm has every right to

On some level I see it as a willful misreading. On the one hand, TechCrunch has every right to refuse money. On the other hand, this PR firm has every right to offer it. This isn't a bribe, there's no indication that they're paying for favorable coverage. The brazen tactics, in fact, suggest that they're not trying to hide anything. Ask yourself, if you were trying to bribe a writer at TechCrunch and you had one of the biggest mobile phone companies in the world as a client, would you really put the bribe in an email? Unlikely. A far more likely scenario is that the PR team was attempting to compensate the writer for their time and was not implying a favorable review, but a review nonetheless. While it's easier to take the position of "Look at this bribery attempt!", it would be more civil to first confirm the intention before lambasting the PR agency in public. Could it have been phrased more tactfully? Absolutely. Did they deserve to be eviscerated in public? Probably not. Just a shallow news cycle for TC, IMHO.