Investing in companies in which your tech blog is covering

Kara Swisher of All Things Digital writes Thursday about TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, who has recently become an investor in some of the companies his site, which was purchased by AOL in the past year, covers.

Swisher writes, “On Tuesday night around 10 pm (just when I just start getting revved up), I wrote a testy email to Arrington’s bosses at AOL – Huffington and CEO Tim Armstrong – as well as the Internet portal’s sharp PR head, asking for a response about what seemed to me to be a glaring conflict of interest at TechCrunch related to new investment activity by Arrington and the site’s coverage of those particular companies he had invested in.

“It was all disclosed, of course, but it still felt, as I said, icky.

“And, given the recent and loudly stated goal of promoting quality journalism by Huffington – including the recent dismissal of AOL’s Moviefone site editor over what the company considered ethical lapses – it seemed pertinent to ask.

“Mostly, because I don’t think they actually knew much – if at all – about Arrington’s increasing investing action. Both Armstrong said as much in an email to me and Huffington assured me they were going to check it out tout de suite.

“But rather than an answer I was waiting on, up popped Arrington’s missive yesterday, which I assume came after his bosses asked for some info on this.

“In it, he explained his controversial decision to go back into investing again, in what is clearly a more significant manner.”

Read more here.