I’ve tagged these links for possible show topics/background notes on September 8th:
- NYTimes.com: Michael Arrington’s Audacious Venture – David Carr fired the first salvo Monday in what would then turn into the Arianna/Arrington/AOL power struggle. Here's the synopsis: "When Michael Arrington, the editor of the popular Web site TechCrunch, told his bosses at AOL that he was forming a venture capital company to finance some of the technology start-ups that his site wrote about, they did not fire him or ask for his resignation. Instead, last week, they invested about $10 million in his fund.
In doing so, they signed on with Silicon Valley’s moneyed elite to be part of CrunchFund, the new enterprise run by the famously influential and blustering Mr. Arrington. The coverage of technology has spawned many innovations in the news business, but now it seems to be the source of a particularly problematic one.
- It’s Not A Mirror, It’s A Crystal Ball – TechCrunch writer Lemon takes the NYTimes' David Carr to task. Here's an excerpt: "More generally, it occurs to me that a lot of these posts are based around a fundamental misunderstanding of how TechCrunch actually works. Journalists seem to think they can write about TechCrunch as if they’re looking in a mirror. That is to say, they think our operation runs in a similar manner to theirs and they use that as a jumping off point for misguided (but predictable) outrage. In reality, what they’re looking at when they look at TechCrunch is a crystal ball."
- TechCrunch – Editorial Independence – Michael Arrington's ultimatum to AOL: Leave us alone, or sell us back. (How'd that work out for him, anyway…)
- Fortune – Arrington out at AOL (for real this time) – (As of last night at 9:20 pm, anyway…) Not TechCrunch editor. Not AOL Ventures employee. Michael Arrington is on his own.
