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Comment by chipmunkninja | Hacker News Reader

I've increasingly been viewing TechCrunch as the Bill O'Reilly show of the startup scene. The noise-to-signal ratio and tabloidesque sensationalism is too painful for my own personal tastes.

However, I know lots of people who find it most useful, but I avoid it like the plague.

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I have been experimentally attempting to avoid reading TechCrunch over the last week and discovered I don't miss it.

Anything important they cover is covered in more detail elsewhere (usually they're just re-reporting something from the WSJ/NYTimes) and surfaced for me either by Techmeme or Hacker News. All of TechCrunch's original reporting is dross, and often inaccurate.

There seems to be this consensus in the tech community that TechCrunch is an industry-shaping dealmaker, but that reputation seems mostly to be coming from TechCrunch itself.

I know it's popular to bash TC on here, and I've long since accepted that it comes with the territory, but this is a pretty ridiculous comment. We frequently break news before the WSJ and NYT.

Case in point: the Google Voice/Apple/AT&T fiasco. We broke the news that Google had submitted their application six weeks ago and subsequently had it rejected. Until then, everyone was under the impression that Google was still "working on it".

Sure there's some bashing, but there are also valid criticisms here.

To me the it's gotten to the point where the cons outweigh the pros. I no longer trust what is written on TC.

Unfortunately we clearly can't trust even your breaking news -- as evidenced by the referenced article -- until it's validated by a more reputable source.

You value getting it first more than getting it right. That might be aligned with TC's business, but not with the better interest of your readers or the public at large.

"We frequently break news before the WSJ and NYT"

That's not so hard when you don't observe the same standards for verifying a story. The impression is that TC simply publishes early and often - statistically, some of it turns out true.

Indeed, the time-honored Drudge Report methodology.

I still read TC and enjoy it most of the time, but I had the same feeling about that emission article. It was just tabloid style.

Before commenting I spent a few minutes browsing the TechCrunch Archives. In doing so, I realized that many headlines seem on target/appropriate - so that is one data point in TC's favor.

That said, TechCrunch has still chosen to publish many sloppy or sensational articles - essentially thumbing their nose at journalistic integrity. I have trouble viewing TC in a positive light after reading through these:

http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards

@jkincaid most of these HN comments aren't ignorant/ridiculous bashing but are piecing together some constructive feedback for TC:

Be Truthful

Be Accurate

Be Accountable

You could garner more readership and respect...

Jason, it's probably not worth your time defending yourself here. The anti-TC people are marginalized by PG's attitude on the matter. In short, Techcrunch has problems, but they write stories about startups. Often, good stories.

But what good is that if the information isn't deemed reliable? I read, and enjoy TechCrunch for new product announcements and reviews -- almost exclusively, and don't really need it for much else, but if a significant portion of TC's "breaking news" is unreliable, then it may as well not exist.

I also don't know if breaking news is as important to readers as it is to journalists, for a number of reasons; Notably, I have a certain number of sites that I peruse per day, and I rely on them for the majority of my daily intake. I don't seek out news, and WSJ and NYT aren't on my reading list, while TC is. I frankly wouldn't know the difference if TC broke something an hour (or even a day) earlier than the next guy.

Really though, I think that TC has enough market/mindshare that they should focus much less on breaking sensationalism, and more on reliably reporting news as accurately as they can in the traditionally plain-English fashion that made them famous.

You are kidding right? I have seen NYT and WSJ break more "tech" stories than TechCrunch. Also when did TC move from covering startups to being tabloid central? I am surprised at some of the sensationalism of the headlines and the repeated bashing of the telcos gets old. Why dont you guys learn a thing or two from GigaOm?

"Also when did TC move from covering startups to being tabloid central? "

When advertising revenues started falling, I suspect.

Sheesh,

The original post was complaining about story whose tongue-in-cheek quality one might get after a minute or two's thought. "Google maps don't lie..." Uh, the point is "figures don't lie but liars figure".

You can't trust techcrunch if you can't trust yourself or your friends to figure this stuff out...

And indeed, maybe you can't trust your friends and I can't trust my friends with certain things but if you can't trust yourself to know what to share with who, well stay away from those intertubes...

Agreed, wholeheartedly.

I don't even follow any of the links that pop up around here anymore.

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