
Former TechCrunch Writer Spills the Truth about TechCrunch - moses1400
http://www.medacity.com/1029/cry-me-a-river-techcrunch/
======
swombat
_> Siegler repeats the classic Arrington line that sometimes we criticize our
“friends,” but that’s all part of the show. It is, and always has been the
veil of legitimacy TechCrunch has traded on. But I know that at my time at
TechCrunch, biting friends was only ever ordered, and only when what they were
doing was so blatantly bad it needed calling out._

 _> TechCrunch has never ever once had editorial independence. What Arrington
means by independence is he calls the shots. That’s not real independence._

If that's true, TechCrunch basically has zero journalistic integrity and is a
puppet rag. Can anyone credible substantiate or dispute this?

~~~
msredmond
[http://www.businessinsider.com/arrington-told-a-room-full-
of...](http://www.businessinsider.com/arrington-told-a-room-full-of-ceos-that-
he-would-maniuplate-techcrunch-coverage-in-return-for-favors-2011-9)

------
peterwwillis
Is it just me? Or does reading articles written about articles written about
infighting at a blog just.... not seem interesting at all?

~~~
erikpukinskis
Totally. But comments in a discussion about an article written about articles
written about infighting are fascinating.

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S_A_P
You know, I come to hacker news and sometimes tech crunch to read about trends
in tech, programming, hacking, and the like. For some time now, TC has read
more like a soap opera. Between stories of being snubbed for a scoop by
founders, to tangles with Arianna Huffington, I cant take them seriously at
all. Get over yourselves people...

~~~
rhizome
It may help alleviate your pains to think of Techcrunch as the TMZ of tech.

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brackin
Is TechCrunch more influential then Mashable?

In my opinion yes. Mashable's audience includes geeks and entrepreneurs but
they're branching out to entertainment, music and the internet in general.
Meaning much of their audience today are more interested in Lady Gaga than
Facebook's valuation, bad analogy as most are these days.

TechCrunch readers are mostly employees of tech companies, startup founders,
VC's and any job within this industry. Meaning if you get TechCrunch'd people
expect more opportunities to come from the post (also the knock on effect)
than just traffic. It really depends what your startup does too. Part of it is
your name will be known to all of these influencers. Both of these are vanity
uses, really.

TechCrunch will bring you valuable, influential traffic (should do, at least).
Mashable will bring you more traffic. If you need early adopters, maybe
getting TechCrunch'd is useful but if you need to target a wider mainstream
audience then it's probably good to get posted on Mashable.

Saying that TechCrunch is no longer relavant is incorrect but in the end,
press is far less important than building a product that users will love.

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gyardley
You know who should run TechCrunch - if he's at all willing to take the job?
Saul Hansell.

Former technology editor and reporter for the New York Times, left a couple of
years ago to join AOL's seed.com (so he's already in-house) - in general, an
old-school newspaper guy who's absolutely committed to high ethical standards.
I could not say enough nice things about him. Hell, I might actually read
TechCrunch again.

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untog
I don't want to sound accusatory, but can anyone give perspective on why this
writer left TechCrunch? It sounds like he was at the centre of it all for a
while, there.

I think it's important to know why/how he left if we want to make sure the
whole article isn't biased.

~~~
ellyagg
It's a little hilarious to want to make sure an article about TC and Arrington
isn't biased. If what he says here is true--and I'm certainly inclined to
believe it given the flagrantly enjoyed conflicts of interest, lawsuits borne
from shady dealing, opportunism (moving residence to Seattle), and egomania--
that alone would be just cause to depart, and probably on less-than-friendly
terms.

Thinking about Arrington reminds me of the story arc on House where the cop
goes hard after him for illegal narcotics. At one point he shows up with a
warrant at House's residence and finds bags full of Vicodin. He tells House
something along the lines of, "Egotistical people think they're smarter than
everyone else. I've already seen you willing to skirt the rules. It's
reasonable to conclude you skirt other rules too, like writing your own
prescriptions."

Given the public, documented things we know about TC and Arrington, it would
beggar belief that he did not use his power to trade favors and influence.

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biznickman
Duncan Riley went out on a bad note from Techcrunch. While he may be accurate
with this post, I'd be careful b/c he has always had a bad taste about leaving
Techcrunch. Regardless, there's no doubt that there are "Techcrunch friends"
and "non-Techcrunch friends".

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sl4yerr
This article should be titled "Former TechCrunch writer drafts poorly-written
inflammatory post to draw pageviews to his new venture"

~~~
fleitz
The best part about the title is that if you remove the words former and
writer the title works for any TC post as well. It appears the young Padiwan
has learned much from his master.

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oldstrangers
Siegler is a manchild.

Look at his subtle shot at Mashable recently:

[http://parislemon.com/post/9951081147/hope-everyone-
enjoys-t...](http://parislemon.com/post/9951081147/hope-everyone-enjoys-the-
new-world-order)

Translation: Arrington is out, this is what you can all expect to enjoy now!
(not translated: Siegler crying into his iPad plushie.)

~~~
timjahn
His post is 100% true though. Mashable has become TMZ, pumping out low quality
content every minute to get the traffic they do.

~~~
oldstrangers
Its not as if TechCrunch is above the tabloid crap. Look at this story, and
every past TC drama, as evidence.

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badclient
Longtime readers of TC may be saying "there is no way Arrington was calling
all the shots the past few years."

Bottomline: TechCrunch was many, many times better when Arrington _was_
callign all the shots. It was apparent. The posts were better. The companies
he was writing about were more interesting.

In the past few years, that quality went downt he drain almost in parallel to
him writing less. Mike's own posts became a small fraction of TC.

There was little evidence of Mike in the TechCrunch of the past few years.

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dave1619
Summary: the author doesn't like MG. No need to read article in full. :)

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tormentor
Arrington seems like a jackass. Why anyone should really care about techcrunch
is beyond me. Sure it gets you exposure but there are plenty of much more
respectable blogs out there. Also its AOL, they're shit. Not sure if anyone
remembers this [http://www.thefastertimes.com/news/2011/06/16/aol-hell-an-
ao...](http://www.thefastertimes.com/news/2011/06/16/aol-hell-an-aol-content-
slave-speaks-out/)

I'm sure we'll be better off without gossip on Arrington or techcrunch.

