Confirmed: Michael Arrington Is In/Out at AOL - Wall Street Journal
- September 2, 2011, 1:14 PM ET
Confirmed: Michael Arrington Is In/Out at AOL
By Tom Loftus
Michael Arrington, the founder of the Silicon Valley king-maker blog TechCrunch, has always seen himself as separate from fellow tech reporters. (Readers, please see the TechCrunch post, The Tech Press: Screw Them All for his insights into the ink-smudged masses.)
Given his stand, he might well be loving the angst currently sweeping the tech blogosphere.
Guy Calaf/Bloomberg Michael Arrington takes a break at the TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2011 conference in New York. Yesterday the news came down that Arrington was creating a venture fund, with support from AOL, for early-stage technology companies. And the immediate reaction by tech journalistsafter using their sleeve to wipe the ketchup off their face, get another cup of coffee, etc.was to ask what all this means for his involvement with TechCrunch. Reporters kind of care about this stuff involving possible conflicts of interest. And TechCrunch owner AOL has this whole ethics code banning reporters from writing about things when they have a financial stake.
So its bye-bye Michael, right?
TechCrunch is a different property and they have different standards, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong told the New York Times yesterday. We have a traditional understanding of journalism with the exception of TechCrunch, which is different but is transparent about it.
OK so TechCrunch reports on technology companies, but it is somehow a little different from traditional tech journalism. That means that Michael gets to stay, right?
Un momento. Last night an AOL spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that in light of Michaels new responsibilities, TechCrunch would be looking for a managing editor for day to day operations and standards. Michael will remain founding editor and when he writes he will continue to transparently and openly disclose any conflicts of interest.
Got it. So TechCrunch is looking for someone to maintain editorial standardsdifferent standards, mind you. And Arrington will be there to write the occasional post. And he will remain the founding editor, which makes sense because he did create TechCrunch, after all.
But wait. Arrington hasnt been managing editor at TechCrunch for a long time now, notes the Business Insider. That role belongs to Erick Schonfeld. So what is going on? The whole thing is sort of dispiriting, honestly, writes the BI.
Slow news day, @arrington tweets.
But then today, Digits woke up to this headline in the WSJ: TechCrunch Editor Resigns. Closure. Kind of. The story noted that Arrington will continue to write for TechCrunch, but will have no editorial oversight.
Later this morning The Business Insider, which obviously has been lying awake all night wondering what to make of this, posted a summary of an email exchange it had with Arianna Huffington: Mr. Arrington is not being paid by TechCrunch, he does not report to TechCrunch editors, and he does not report to Arianna Huffington or other AOL Huffington Post Media Group personnel.
The BI reporters asked Huffington to be a little more specific on Arringtons new role: Like many other celebrities and former AOL writers, Ms. Huffington says, Mr. Arrington will be welcome to contribute unpaid blogs to the company, as long as he stays within AOLs blogging guidelines. So will Michael be AOLs next Alec Baldwin?
If that was not bad enough, an AOL senior vice president told the Business Insider later this morning that Michaels venture fund, CrunchFund, would not have access to the information TechCrunch gets on companies non-public business plans. Such access would be a boon to any investment fund, as Kara Swisher pointed out in her excellent post on All Things D.
AOL did not immediately respond to a request for further clarification on Arringtons status.
Frustrated, Digits visited TechCrunchs staff page. It still lists Michael Arrington as founder/co-editor. At least for now.
Emily Steel contributed to this article.
Comments
Post a Comment