Why We Often Blindside Companies
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
First, if you're reporting on the acquisition of a company and you don't bother to talk to the people involved, then you're publishing rumors. If you're worried about being "scooped" by an official press release, then just have everything ready to go before the calls. The story they posted about the acquisition wasn't long. They could have easily had held space for official responses, and then published once they got them - even if that response would just be "so-and-so declined to comment." Not doing so is, in my opinion, sloppy reporting.
Second, he seems to have the attitude that he owns the information that he comes across - that the people the story is about don't have the basic right to say it themselves. Who seriously expects people to look out for the best interest of news outlets instead of themselves? What kind of a bizarre gentlemen's agreement does he think is in place? "Oh, TC is going to run a story on me. I guess I'll have to wait until they publish before I say anything so I don't ruin their scoop." For some people, a blog post is an equivalent to a press release. Perhaps he should treat it as such.
Actually, Arrington made it explicitly clear he was fine with them releasing the information themselves, and they had every right to do it. But, he's going to avoid giving those people a heads up in the future if all they're going to do is scoop him on a story by releasing themselves.
As a result, those people who decide to take advantage of the heads up they've been given by him, will no longer get an advance heads up any more. Those people who do let Arrington release his story first, will be given both the opportunity to respond, as well as a heads up that a story will be filed.
And, you aren't publishing rumors if you've been able to sufficiently confirm a story - frequently the one being asked to respond about a story is often the least willing to provide the truth, so getting their response is quite often being polite, rather than really clarifying anything.
With all that said - I think Arrington was being juvenile in his rumor mongering in that article. He could have cut about 20 percent of the speculation and it would have been a better article. This is where bloggers lack of editors results in (significantly) reduced quality of articles.
I was fine with Techcrunch's increased coverage on BigCos and decreased coverage on startups -- they need to pay the bills, and juicy popular companies get more views than tiny startups. But this is too far. I never assumed that Techcrunch was a strong resource for entrepreneurs, but now they'll throw them under the bus for a blog post.
Right now I'm picturing the worst about someone without details so my brain is just making up things that are probably much worse than anything that actually happened. I didn't much control over that instinct either which is the most annoying part.
But yeah, Arrington isn't really much of a journalist in my opinion. Just a guy who wants power over people. Does he actually claim not to be a journalist? I mean, he's attempting to perform acts of journalism, so I would assume his claiming not to be a journalist is some sort of dodge so people can't call him an unethical journalist.
But if it walks like a duck.....
Yes.
Since when do we bitch about a personal gripe with somebody to an entire internet readership audience? That's expected behaviour if you're 14 and posting on facebook, but this is supposed to be a respectful (and respected) news site. Or isn't it?
You call sources to get the story right and to protect yourself against libel, not out of kindness.
Context: (http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/17/we-will-fight-in-the-shade/)
Soap opera for nerds.
Talk about unnecessary politics in a day and age when I can fire off a blog post or a tweet, I should run it by Mike first to see if he wanted to break it ?
With all due respect, that's wrong.
I understand Michael's desire to always be breaking cutting-edge news (after all, that's how he makes a living), but this is kinda ridiculous.
Edit: Initially mistakenly worded the part about the CEO of AdMeld. Corrected with thanks to the comment below pointing out the mistake.