I very much used to be a fan of TechCrunch, initially it seemed that they had some of the best reporting on the various going ons in the valley (Silicon Valley). Michael Arrington started the blog back in 2005. I remember this because I was at the University of California, Davis at the time. (Just a short sprint from Silicon Valley, or at least comparatively to the rest of the nation.) My attention has always been on startups and startup culture. This is still where my focus is, despite being temporarily located several thousand miles away from the valley.
Anyhow his blog grew immensely popular in a short period of time covering general tech and startups as well. However it became apparent that there were issues early on.
There were general concerns about reporting standards as well. This does bring the question though, does a blog need to meet the same standards as traditional journalism? Is there a certain threshold that begs additional standards of journalistic integrity or is publishing a story in any form make one responsible to fully vet their sources?
However his numerous ethics violations and general unsavoriness has overshadowed what positives he exhibited. He sold the company to AOL, Techcrunch was put under the auspices of the Huffington Group within AOL. Some say it has since taken a decidedly political twist since then, further eroding any semblance of journalistic integrity. See how that whole rumour thing works there?
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