Categories: OLD Media Moves

Arrington leaving TechCrunch

AOL announced Monday that Michael Arrington is leaving the tech news site TechCrunch that he founded and sold to the Internet company a year ago.

Emily Steel of The Wall Street Journal writes, “AOL announced the move in a statement on Monday and said it would continue to invest in Mr. Arrington’s fund. The announcement of the fund earlier this month set off a debate between Mr. Arrington and AOL over journalistic ethics and whether Mr. Arrington’s should continue to write for the blog.

“AOL named Erick Schonfeld editor of TechCrunch. Mr. Schonfeld was previously the site’s co-editor.

“Mr. Arrington commented on the matter briefly at a TechCrunch conference in San Francisco, saying ‘it is no longer a good situation for me to stay’ and calling it ‘a sad day.’

“When the fund was announced Sept. 1, an AOL spokesman said that Mr. Arrington would remain a founding editor of TechCrunch. In the role, he would disclose conflict of interests when he wrote but have ‘no editorial oversight,’ the company said.

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.