- Josh

But I honestly think you give me too much credit. I’m not taking a holier-than-thou position by any means.

I’m simply pointing out that there’s nothing flattering when one of the most prominent bloggers teases/intimidates/humiliates a company executive who refused to give him information and made the honest mistake of doing so in a less-than-tactful manner because he received an unpolished email from an intern asking him point blank for sensitive financial information.

There are a lot of people in the blogosphere who claim that the blogosphere is and is going to play an important role in “real” journalism. There are also a lot of people in the blogosphere who have criticized mainstream journalism, including Arrington.

From that perspective, when one of the most prominent bloggers engages in such petty, unprofessional and unjournalistic behavior by disparaging an executive and his startup for little more than a refusal to provide information, it just doesn’t make the blogosphere look very good and doesn’t bode well for blogging as journalism.

Whether they like it or not, people like Arrington are the face of the blogosphere and how they act does reflect on it. Right now, the reflection doesn’t look so good.

I also totally agree that using one’s pulpit to settle petty disputes (or in this case the kind of rejection that Arrington no doubt felt powerless against as a child) is lame. It just has so little affect on me, as I have sat witness to so many numbers of flames on blogs over the years. In the past, traditional journalists waited to lambaste people in their private memoirs, or hid them within thinly disguised characters in novels – today’s online journalists just cry it all out. It might be healthier, actually. I don’t know.

As for “transparent bias,” yes I have read your dictionary. I also read Wired in 2005: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/04/67366

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1. ALWAYS check for press releases before you ask a stupid question. Funding information comes out as press releases.

2. He linked back to the TIME 100 ARTICLE. Hello, hubris, thy name is TechCrunch.

Does that mean that they use their positions to publicly disparage people who refuse to give them information? As I said, I’ve never opened up the Wall Street Journal to read a petty article about a person who refused to divulge information to a Journal reporter.

I would point out that decency and class can co-exist with opinion. I’m surprised that so many people seem to think that they can’t.

As for “transparent bias” – clearly you’ve been reading my dictionary. Good work.

Transparent bias is the foundation of blogging and its appeal is the cornerstone of the demise of traditional journalism. And the rise of itself. From Jon Stewart to The Onion to Huffington Post to Go Fug Yourself… biased works on the Web because the ENTIRE Web ISN’T biased. Nobody needs to walk the middle line, shave off all the corners and make it appealing for the lowest common denominator. That’s what makes it all work so beautifully. This is opinion-ville. Enter at your own risk.

I’m down to DownloadSquad and Webware for reading, as in general I am not conscious of who is writing a particular piece. Thankfully so, since the writer is generally not meant to be part of the story.

The last two times I’ve read TC it was about someone at Mr. Arrington’s house and someone on Mr. Arrington’s nerves. Not my cup of tea.

These are minor details.

The primary issue here is that it’s quite sad when an A-list blogger like Arrington apparently can’t handle a less-than-subtle rejection of his request for information and instead resorts to a low-class post that is realistically of no value to TechCrunch readers.

It’s petty and unbecoming of somebody who has questioned the integrity of mainstream journalism.

Last time I opened up the Wall Street Journal, I didn’t find a bunch of articles disparaging company executives who refused to disclose information to Journal reporters.

I guess if Arrington was running the Journal, instead of “The company did not respond to requests for information,” we’d read “The corrupt assholes at the company have ignored my requests for information.”