Wired V. TechCrunch (Or 'Hey Wired, Bitter Much?')

Ok, before you say I'm taking Arrington's side in this because he's about to interview me on stage in a few hours and I'm scared he might throw water on me, remember two things:

1. Wired gave me a RAVE review for my book, I really like and admire Dylan Tweney, and Wired's epicenter is covering my party Thursday so I have just as much reason to kiss up to them.

2. Arrington has already told me he never reads my blog. :(

It's not that Wired doesn't have a point.

I don't own any stocks in any publicly held companies, and neither does my husband. We only own mutual funds, where we have no control and little knowledge of what's bought and sold by the fund managers.

But just like blogs shake up the way and speed with which publications can disseminate news, so too do they shake up industry practices. I'm not saying it's good to have a relaxation of standard journalism rules to avoid conflicts, but I'm not sure those rules necessarily prevented them either.

Some publications, for instance, ban you from accepting a free meal from a source. If someone thinks they can buy me with a meal, you need a new media strategy. Especially in this day and age with blogs watching my every move. A free meal would hardly be worth a scandal. What's more, I've never had someone expect a positive story after buying me a meal. (BusinessWeek's rules say you can alternative if it's someone you dine with regularly, which is generally the strategy I use as a contractor for various publications.)

Similarly, BusinessWeek and others don't allow staffers to be paid for speaking gigs. That's a huge detriment to authors, as the speaking circuit is a lucrative way to promote the book and make money off what's frequently a money-losing labor of love. I could understand not accepting money from a company you cover, or even a company your publication covers. But a conference or industry association seems another matter. For years, BusinessWeek would even take reporters off beats if they wrote a book about their areas of expertise. The fear was they'd be indirectly promoting their own book sales. Um, have you seen how much royalties are? Besides, that risk seems out weighed by the expertise the publication and the readers lose by not having the most knowledgeable person about a company write about it.

It's not just that some of the rules are silly and outdated. They have a detrimental affect of lulling publications into thinking they are conflict-free. I know reporters (who I won't name) who check off all the boxes but then engage in something far more outrageous. I can't really give examples without betraying confidences, but think of it like: Don't buy me a hot dog, but can you have a dinner party in my honor at your house and invite Barak Obama?

It's probably a fair point that both are bad for a beat reporter. But for a blogger, columnist, or contributor, I think either would actually be fine as long as it was all disclosed. Then the pressure shifts from not accepting things because you're not allowed to, to not accepting them because you want more credibility. In the case of Arrington, I think he does a good job of disclosing investments when he writes about them. He argued in part of my TechTicker interview we didn't air, that he loved conflicts of interest and they made him a better journalist. (I'm trying to get Yahoo to produce that piece for tomorrow to shed some light on this debate, because I think he makes some good points.) But we all have every right not to believe his analysis, once the conflict is disclosed. And you can argue, that hurts him. But still, it's his choice.

On a side note, Don Graham of the Post is one of the more forward thinking people in the news industry about the Web. He was a close early friend and mentor to Mark Zuckerberg, getting the power of Facebook before a lot of Valley insiders did. (As discussed in.....you guessed it! My book!)

At any rate, the way Wired has handled this has totally bankrupted them of any high road status. Tagging TechCrunch posts with "buttmunch"? Who has a pre-existing bias now?

Comments

[Mircea]

Between competitors things like this can happen :)...I just remember some ads see at the TV where some car manufacturer just makes fun of the competitors cars and then shows why his car is better.

And I saw this not only in that industry.

This is not allowed in Europe...

Maybe in journalism competition shouldn't be exposed in such dirty ways...but what do I know, I'm not a journalist :)...

[Mircea]

BTW, I just bought your book and I hope it will be good :).

I also bought the book Founders at Work some time ago which deals with the Web 1.0 era companies...curious to make a comparison, not between the books but between companies.

[Fred Johnson]

How is it no one in the world understands the buttmunch reference

does no one read wired blogs?

i mean sweet merciful crap.

it's called snark! look it up.