
Michael Arrington: “I’m a Click-Whoring Jackass” - raganwald
http://www.theangrydrunk.com/2008/05/29/michael-arrington-is-a-click-whoring-jackass/
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dhotson
I stopped taking TechCrunch seriously a long time ago.

Absolutely no journalistic integrity.. even for blogging standards.

~~~
TrevorJ
While I agree with the critic, I'd also point out that at no point did blogs
magically become bona-fide news outlets. Sure, some are, but being a BLOG
doesn't make it journalism, the writing does. I view Techcrunch as more of a
Op-Ed column.

~~~
dcurtis
It would be a pretty easy argument to suggest that some blogs became bona-fide
news outlets when people started to use them as their primary source of news.

I don't read newspapers anymore. I get 90% of my news from blogs.

TechCrunch has a presence that suggests they are a reputable source of
information, and most of the articles there suggest the same. But every once
in a while, Michael Arrington throws a strange, opinionated and arguably
unprofessional article into the mix.

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pg
This article is itself about as lightweight a piece of linkbait as I've ever
seen here.

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scott_s
And yet, I agree with the author, and upvoting it made me feel good.

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pg
If you upvote merely to agree, everyone else gets a boring reading list.

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raganwald
I have a strong feeling upmod/downmod is broken as a mechanism for guageing
the "interesting-ness" of web posts. It seems that everyone agrees that the
community "ought to" upmod valuable things and downmod useless things
independantly of whether each person agrees or disagrees with the basic
premise, however what I observe is that the more emotionally invested someone
is in an issue, the further they stray from the utopian ideal.

~~~
gojomo
The problem is overloading a tiny 1-dimensional 'grunt' of a feedback
mechanism. (Or really, half-a-dimension, when only upvotes are allowed.) It's
aggravated by the fact the exact same up-arrow is an approved way to agree
with a comment. [1]

My suggestion when this problem has come up previously: adopt a 2-axis
feedback mechanism, with up-down meaning promote-demote (give something
more/less attention), and right-left meaning agree-disagree. [2] [3]

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117196>

[3] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126917>

~~~
nostrademons
The Boston Globe has started including something similar to that in its print
newspaper: they have a 2D scatterplot under the Letters to the Editor where
the y-axis is the number of letters on each topic and the x-axis is whether
the letters were in favor or opposed. It's a nifty at-a-glance visualization.

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earle
I'm actually surprised we didnt see a little more blowback from that post. It
seems TC has been getting progressively more opinionated and biased as of
late...

But you get what you pay for.

~~~
apathy
_But you get what you pay for._

I'm not even sure TechCrunch deserves that generous evaluation. Typically I
feel dumber after reading a TC link.

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huhtenberg
Judging by his recent posts, it seems like Mr. Arrington is now on Microsoft's
payroll. His pro-Microsoft bias is not just evident, it is verging on an edge
of outright lies. It is also _very_ annoying.

In fact, I have stopped reading Arrington's posts altogether and funny enough
TC still reads exactly as it did few months ago.

~~~
Jasber
He's on Microsoft's payroll but he's a Mac guy?

Say what you want about the man but, but I think he does a good job balancing
his opinion with the facts.

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aneesh
Microsoft makes software for Macs too, you know. In fact, Microsoft has a Mac
business unit.

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samson
Please lets not turn Hacker News into a microphone to talk to TechCrunch.

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maien
MA is a true believer in hypes. Can't you see that he is actually enjoying
starting link baiting with exaggerating titles? The more bias he is, more ppl
visits and comments, and more page view to claim. If you have commented, the
chances that you are going back is higher, isn't it?

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brandonkm
I think everyone is being a bit too hard on Michael Arrington. Most of the
time his articles are well written and insightful. To take just one piece he
wrote and discount him and TC completely just because of the misuse of
quotation marks is a bit over the top.

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alaskamiller
Good thing we banned Valleywag.

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berecruited
I actually like that Arrington is expressing opinion in his articles... the
other authors on his staff mostly give the news in black and white. When
Michael writes, at least it has an op-ed type feel to it and gets you thinking
(whether or not you agree with him is a totally a different matter!).

~~~
raganwald
If he provokes some useful thought for you, terrific.

That being said... the post zeroes in on a question of integrity: Quoting
someone means they said what you quoted. Don't you think Arrington could give
you an op-ed opinion without misrepresenting the subject?

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apathy
_Don't you think Arrington could give you an op-ed opinion without
misrepresenting the subject?_

Judging by recent events, I'm going to have to say "No".

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jcromartie
This is standard operating procedure at many social news sites. People are
constantly making quotes out of some idea they've inferred from an article.
I'd say that puts Arrington at about the level of a particularly slimy Digg or
Reddit submitter. That said, it's a serious problem that the social sites
don't crack down on enough. Submitters who engage in such practices should
simply be banned as soon as it is discovered that a quote in their title is
made up.

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dangoldin
The blog title and post itself is click-whoring.

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wumi
isn't that the point?

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sealedidentity
techcrunch, the sideshow of valleywag.

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redorb
I have to agree it was a great liberty taken by Micheal, on the other hand its
his business and he can do what he feels he has to in order for it to prosper.

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greyman
I don't agree. In order to prosper, you may do what you feel you have to, but
you should have at least some integrity, for example, you should not lie,
especially when you are trying to be a reporter of news. (Why he was lying is
explained in the blog post).

