[jemfinch]

Can someone summarize the controversy for me?

As I understand it, Arrington wanted to head a new VC while at the same continuing to serve as head of TechCrunch, the major journalistic outlet in the startup field. AOL raised questions about his journalistic integrity, and made him choose between being a VC and being a journalist, and he gave them an ultimatum, they called his bluff, and he chose VC.

Did I miss a detail or nuance that makes this anything other than AOL holding up traditional journalistic virtues?

[ig1]

Arrington voluntarily posted on TC announcing he was stepping down as Editor of TC but remaining on as a writer while he went to start his new fund. His new fund is primarily funded by AOL and he has the full support of the AOL CEO.

Arianna who's responsible for AOL's other news outlets then had her staff tell the media that Arrington was fired and would have no role at Techcrunch. This seems to have been done without consulting the AOL executive committee who backed Arrington.

Techcrunch when they were acquired by AOL were promised full editorial independence, hence they were AOL's only news blog outlet not to be controlled by Arianna. Arianna then attempted to make a power grab by publicly announcing that Techcrunch fell under her control and she was going to appoint the new editor.

Arrington complained that this grossly violated the editorial independence promised by AOL, and that Techcrunch should be able to appoint it's own editor. Many of TC's writers are unhappy with this violation and feel without independence they won't be able to retain the tone and spirit of TC (which is often very abrasive).

At least one of their writers (Paul Carr) has publicly stated that he would resign unless Arrington got to appoint the next editor . Even in this article note how the Techcrunch writer puts "Deciding" in quotation marks to indicate that Arrington was pushed.

The final line of the press release "TechCrunch will be expanding its editorial leadership in the coming months." seems to imply that Arianna has won the power battle within AOL. The line saying Erick Schonfeld has been named editor is highly misleading, Erick's been co-editor of TC since 2007, it adds nothing new to the situation.

[mikeryan]

Small note, this doesn't seem to be simply an unsolicited power grab on Arianna Huffington's part. From the Press Release announcing the AOL Acquisition of Huffpo:

Arianna Huffington To Lead Newly Formed The Huffington Post Media Group Which Will Integrate All Huffington Post and AOL Content, Including News, Tech, Women, Local, Multicultural, Entertainment, Video, Community, and More

It seems like her role as Editor In Chief of all AOL content was part of the deal she made, since this occurred after the Techcruch deal was done Arrington likely had little recourse at that point. (Huffpo was acquired after TC, any promises made to TC about editorial independence was prior to the new editorial leadership). "Promises" made when big companies buy little ones are always pretty worthless once the rubber really hits the road.

[ig1]

TC has remained mostly independent after that point as well:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/24/aol-to-restructure-media-gr...

Of-course none of that will matter if the TC writers decide to leave an create a rival blog. It comes down to if AOL can now pay them enough to stay.

[mikeryan]

TC has remained mostly independent after that point as well:

I think that current events have pretty much dispelled that notion.

[lawnchair_larry]

While some say that TechCrunch is the TMZ of our industry, some days it seems like Hacker News is the TMZ of TechCrunch. I don't care what anyone says, we're all eating up the TC drama over here.

[billpatrianakos]

Agreed. I don't really think it's good or bad thing but just a good observation. It's a lot like how everyone cranes their neck at a car accident. You don't want to gawk but you do anyway.

[w1ntermute]

If the writers are really that pissed, what's to stop them from just jumping ship and starting a new tech blog? They'll be able to take their industry contacts and Twitter accounts with them, meaning they could have a near seamless transition.

[mikeryan]

Undoubtedly there's a non-compete in place, at least for Arrington. The writers could maybe jump ship if they are willing to take the leap, but they'd have to be very careful to steer clear of Arrington if they do so.

Note non-competes as the result of acquisitions are pretty much iron clad even in CA.

[ig1]

It's unclear if they do have non-competes. Non-competes make sense for developers at a startup stopping them working for a rival to that startup, as there's plenty of other firms that developers can work for.

But for tech journalists ? - if you stop them working for a tech news site they can't get another job. It's not as if they can become sports journalists or war correspondents, a large part of their value is in their specialism and contacts in that specialism. Hence a non-compete would probably be considered an unfair restraint of trade.

[pyoung]

"Note non-competes as the result of acquisitions are pretty much iron clad even in CA."

I think that only applies if the employee in question had ownership/investment in the acquired company. If they did not, then the non-compete is not valid (at least in CA, I have no idea about WA).

[tomkarlo]

Generally, ethics guidelines at reputable publication (and with AOL, the "reputable" part probably deserves airquotes) will prohibit editors and reporters from having personal investments in the companies they write about, to prevent conflicts of interest or at least the appearance of such conflicts. For reporters that cover a sector, this generally extends to all companies within that industry (I used to be a technology reporter.)

Arrington wanted to both:

1. run an influential tech publication covering early stage companies

2. run a fund that invests in early stage companies and have compensation tied to the performance of that fund (if not his own money invested as well.)

Those two are generally considered mutually exclusive as far as a media organization is concerned. If someone at AOL didn't see that conflict when adding him to their fund effort, they're dumb. If Mike didn't see that issue, he's dumb too or just thinks everyone else is dumb.

Clearly AOL at least has some minimum threshold of integrity they're trying to maintain. I don't think there's much blame you can assign to Huffington on this unless you can find another major editor who would allow that kind of a conflict.

[Lewisham]

All the rumors say that Arrington and Ariana Huffington (head of AOL's editorial) were are loggerheads as soon as Huffington joined the company.

Two people that liked each other and wanted to work together professionally could probably have worked it out, but there was no way either of these two would have managed it.

[mcantelon]

By the terms of the sale of Techcrunch to AOL, Arrington would have had to stay there 3 year. Starting a venture fund is his way of trolling his way out of that obligation.

[ChuckMcM]

Pretty simple really, AOL acquired two aggressive and ambitious bloggers (Mike Arrington and Arianna Huffington) and put them in a situation where one where they would be in constant conflict but constrained by contractual earn-out restrictions. Sort of like tying a bear to a stake and putting a dog in the ring. Much messiness ensued, painful to watch, and now Mike has left the arena (presumably with most of his money and certainly with his VC venture intact).

Perhaps he'll become like the other side of pg and write cogent essays about the marketing and PR side of startups while funding a small stable of them.