Michael Arrington Uses Journalism as Excuse to Rid Himself of Shitty Investments

Updated below with my email to Michael Arrington.

You can’t make this shit up. Michael Arrington, fresh out of the Witness Protection Program where he was hiding from the Salivian Mafia, is ready to embrace journalistic ethics.

It’s a touchy subject. After all, Arrington has admitted that conflicts of interest are integral to TechCrunch, he informed his readers that he donated money to a charity that, to the best of my knowledge, still doesn’t legally exist, claims have been made about how his personal relationships impact coverage and, of course, TechCrunch has been caught engaging in suspicious-looking copy-and-paste press release journalism.

None of this, of course, has stopped Arrington him from slinging mud at mainstream journalists (and getting smacked down in the process).

But things are changing. Now that TechCrunch has been named one of Time’s most overrated blogs and the only news worth writing about is a new URL shortening service, it’s time to get serious about this journalism shit.

Today, in a post amusingly entitled “The Rules Apply to Everyone”, Arrington announced that he’d be divesting himself of the investments he’s made in Internet startups.

Of course, according to Arrington the rules don’t apply to everyone (he’s still excluded when it’s convenient) and his announcement comes after the point at which it became obvious to everybody with an IQ above 65 that the Web 2.0 scam was over. It comes after he’s given those “portfolio companies” coverage. And, most importantly, it comes after it must have become obvious that none of his investments is going anywhere.

edgeio failed (that conflict was resolved when Arrington lost his money). Daylife (who?) might as well still be in stealth mode. Omnidrive’s founder (and former TechCrunch employee) turned out to be a con-artist (that conflict was resolved when Arrington and the other investors lost their money). Seesmic is dying (that conflict will clearly will soon be resolved when the company exhausts what’s left of its money). Dancejam has proven that nobody wants to “touch this” when it comes to MC Hammer.

Which leaves Dogster. The company is reportedly doing okay, but is highly-dependent upon advertising and looks more to be a small business than the type of high-growth company investors typically hope will provide an exit. The number of potential buyers is limited, it certainly doesn’t have any IPO potential and it won’t be paying dividends soon so from Arrington’s perspective, it’s probably a wash.

In other words, Arrington’s announcement is pretty damn hollow and it’s clear to anyone with a modicum of intelligence that Arrington’s talk of journalistic integrity is a nice way to spin his decision to divest himself of a bunch of shitty investments.

Unfortunately, it’s too little, too late. Just as you can’t run a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme for decades and walk away with an apology, you can’t piss on journalistic ethics for years and then embrace them. Credibility is built from the ground up, it isn’t created by trying to explain what you’ve done to obtain it.

Is it possible, though, that Arrington is really serious about reforming himself?

Nope. All you need to know about Arrington’s true character is based on how he wrote his post. Instead of having the balls to explain his actions and his position, he decided it necessary to call to attention how other bloggers have pissed on journalistic ethics in greater volume than he has. It’s the proverbial, “But mom! Jimmy did it too!” nonsense that you’ll hear from spoiled little twats. Arrington is the pot calling the kettle black.

But I do have to give him credit. He isn’t as dumb as he looks. He ends his post by writing, “I’ll also discontinue making any further investments.” Given the results of his past investments, that, Mikey, may be the best idea you’ve had in years. After all, when you couldn’t cash in when times are good, I don’t know how you’re going to cash in when times are bad.

The one winner in all this: Arrington’s bank account. Free of sub-prime Web 2.0 assets, it will certainly be thanking Arrington for his investment epiphany.

Update: I have offered to buy Arrington’s shares in Seesmic and Dancejam. I sent the following email to editor@techcrunch.com:

Michael,

I know I’ve been critical of you and TechCrunch but I’d like to take the investments you’ve made in Seesmic and Dancejam off your hands. I’ll pay you $15 for your Seesmic shares and $50 for your Dancejam shares if you can get MC Hammer to autograph a poster for me.

This is a limited time offer that’s part of the government’s MILF toxic asset purchase plan so email me ASAP if you’re interested. Do you accept PayPal?

- D2.0

I will let my readers know if we reach an agreement.