Welcome To The Team, Sarah Lacy | Hacker News Reader

Welcome To The Team, Sarah Lacy

techcrunch.com

9 pointsvaksel15 comments

The quality of comments on TC never ceases to amaze me - eg "Whatever Sarah, just show us your tits x"

It's the natural byproduct of the growth of a blog.

I don't get why they don't just delete stuff like that. With TC's reputation, it should be no problem for them to hire a couple of interns to just patrol their comments and delete stuff like that plus the tons of spam that I've seen there lately.

Sure. It seems an odd choice to allow unmoderated anonymous commenting.

I've seen them delete comments before. I guess the comment patrol is on a break

Yipes. Arrington's attitude, without his knowledge of startups.

This is a big win for TechCrunch. People give Lacy a lot of guff, but I enjoy what I've read of her work.

She is the only one who can actually write on techcrunch. All others are basically blogging(not as professional)

My experience with her was far from professional. She printed unfiltered digg PR in her book, including attributing words to me that I never said without any attempt at verification. She'll fit right in with the other PR people at techcrunch. A journalist she is not (I've worked at a newspaper so I've met actual journalists).

She might be a bad journalist in your opinion, but debating whether or not someone is a journalist is like debating whether or not someone who programs is a hacker.

I don't think that argument holds up for a second. Lack of integrity is obvious to even the uninitiated - many journalists have been exposed for fabrication. Lack of programming ability takes a certain amount of expertise to expose.

I don't see integrity as something specific to being a journalist. It's something specific to being a good one. Just like it's specific to being a good...anything.

She could well be a terrible journalist. I disagree from what I've seen, but you've seen otherwise. Cool.

But saying she's not a journalist doesn't make sense to me. She's paid to be a journalist by Businessweek. Therefore, she's a journalist, in my book.

One thing I learned while working at a newspaper is that the business section is a ghetto. It's the last cash cow they have left, basically thinly disguised display advertising. Business Week is like that from cover to cover.

You worked at one newspaper...and learned that ALL business sections are ghettos, pumping out thinly veiled display advertising?

one != all

It'd be fair to say that you worked at one place with a lousy business section, making you suspicious of business journalism.

It'd be fair to say you worked at one place with a lousy business section, making you think there are others out there like it, but to crap on ALL of them based on your experience at one?

I'm not expecting this to go anywhere. You've made your mind up on this. I'm just trying to point out that the reasoning here doesn't clock.

Along with the one newspaper, I've got 2 business degrees where I got to hear about the manipulation from the other side. Then there's the digg experience, where Jay and Kevin could fabricate whatever the hell they wanted to, and it would be printed verbatim in many, many blogs, magazines, newspapers, whatever. I can give you many examples. Or you could actually search for articles - there's plenty out there - about how business magazines and business sections of newspapers out there that suppress info because it displeases advertisers.

That's not to say there isn't good biz journalism out there - just as a random example, for every 100 breathless, admiring article about Enron back in the day, there was one journalist who actually tracked down the truth.

The downmodding is pretty funny. You guys gripe about Techcrunch all the time being a tabloid. They hire someone who's clearly got better credentials than Mike and you just say they're getting worse. You're not playing fair.

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