Moviefone's response: http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/03/15/moviefones-response-to-...
Then to quote the letter: I think their issue is just with some of the text. Let me know if you're able to take another look at it and make any edits.
That's a very PC way of saying change the post. They sounded like they expected compliance. They're expectations were wrong.
It sounds like they expected nothing and this was a CYA email, knowing TechCrunch would not comply, but allowing them to say, "We tried."
They didn't threaten them with respect to future access. They didn't demand anything. They weren't rude or antagonizing. They just asked for a change. To me, it now seems like they did exactly what they ought to given how they probably felt.
On the other hand...
I'm an amateur writer (I admit, this is far from a journalist). Sometimes I'm just wrong, or I write something that ends up coming across differently than I expected. I always welcome feedback, even if I disagree with it, or I think it might be driven by some bias. It doesn't mean that I'm going to change it. But without such feedback, I'm not sure I'd ever get better. I guess I'm worried that in your world, journalist would be living in an ivory tower.
This constantly happens. People submit editorials with their opinion about what others wrote. People write-in to journalist all the time - to agree or disagree.
A movie review isn't an objective piece of pure journalism. It's much more of a subjective editorial, and as such, should be open to far more feedback.
off course they are subtle about it, it is so they can deny it later - but the recipient and the sender (and people reading it now) all know wtf is going on and what was being asked
Also, I'd love to know how the presence on staff of someone whose job it is to relay concerns from PR agents to journalists from a separate publication "is just one means we have of ensuring editorial integrity on Moviefone".
heh heh
The ethical thing to do would be to say, with slightly nicer words, "sorry, we don't interfere with TechCrunch, we didn't publish the review, go tell them yourselves."