TechCrunch editor: Screw the tech press

Michael Arrington, the editor and founder of TechCrunch, responds Saturday to criticism he’s received from others in the tech media for hid disclosure last week that he’s investing in tech companies.

Arrington writes, “Look, I’m still new to this journalism thing. I treat our readers the same way I’d like to be treated. With full and complete disclosure. I’m really sorry if that upsets the old guard. But the reality is this. The people complaining the most are the people who are the most deeply conflicted. They’re the people who are, at best, vague about their own conflicts of interest. Right and wrong don’t seem to be concepts they worry about too much. Nor do they seem to be overly concerned with hypocrisy or even the basic underlying lack of logic in their rants.

“Really, it all came into focus for me this week. A major news publication asked for ‘my side’ after all this complaining. I spent a half our on the phone with him at his request. And he never wrote. Why? ‘My editors want to leave Arianna dangling in the wind,’ he said, referring to the fact that Ariana Huffington, my boss, was taking heat for this situation. It never occurred to him that he just killed a story because that story might help a competitor (Huffington Post), and how screwed up that was.

“I have little hope for this industry until the last of the old guard have finally been put down. They do NOT control the news. They do NOT control opinion. They do NOT get to say who gets to write content and who doesn’t. And they do NOT get to rant about their ethics when they constantly fight against simple transparency.”

Read more here.