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Ask HN: Should TechCrunch Reveal Who Paid For Posts?

20 points by jsm386 ↗ HN
So TechCrunch has been pretty transparent about this, which is admirable - and as other threads here and there have noted, it was quite clear who the offending intern was. He has since penned an apology http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1103069

But, in addition to 'An Appology To Our Readers' should TechCrunch reveal who got their play for pay? As dannyr noted 'It takes 2 to tango. If the intern was punished, the company that bribed him should also be punished.'

Edit - Here is another angle: http://siliconangle.com/blog/2010/02/05/was-deleting-all-daniel-brusilovsky’s-posts-an-ftc-blogger-guideline-violation-bruhaha/

28 comments

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pclark
Did the company do anything wrong really though?
yannis
I would say a definite yes. They did wrong. Having worked for many years in the Middle East where this sort of thing is endemic, I would say in most cases it is the Company's corrupt policies that take advantages of people's weaknesses to achieve their own goals. Pretty much like the KGB coercing someone to spy for them in the old days, because he was in need of money or had a weak character. Both parties are wrong.
Kadrith
Yes, not because they offered the gift but because they offered it knowing that it was against TC's policy. Providing the company's name would help ensure other companies think hard about bribing TC writers.

Right now the TC writer has been punished, rightfully so, but the company has gotten away with it.

Or are we to assume that any company he wrote about may have provided the bribe?

shareme
they already did..see update blog post pointer
antirez
"who paid", the poster wonders if TC should tell you the company that accepted to pay, not the guy that accepted the gift.
gte910h
Can you link this?

I mean the reason they deleted all the posts was to hide who paid I assumed.

pplante
I think this is much more common than you might expect. I don't like the idea of asking for compensation for a favorable mention, however is it all that different from when a company gives away their wares to someone unsolicited? I suspect that most people in that position will have their opinion slightly altered by the act of getting stuff for free. Many bloggers get stuff sent to them by various companies, some keep the items, others give it away to the readers.

So is asking to keep the item, or asking for an item all that much different? I guess its more overt from the author that they are after something, but if the author still maintains an objective viewpoint what harm is really done?

Can you really trust the product opinion of someone who hasn't put out their hard earned cash to acquire it? Amazon reviews in my eyes are much more powerful than something like Consumer Reports. What about you?

larsr
Consumer Reports has no advertising and they buy everything they review. When possible, they test items in blind trials. The magazine is also published by a non-profit. On the other hand, Amazon reviews have been gamed by both consumers and companies (two examples: Spore, Belkin). You can't be sure the people writing reviews actually bought the products they are reviewing. In my eyes Amazon reviews are better than nothing, but they don't come close to the value of a review by an unbiased party like Consumer Reports.
pplante
You have a good point regarding CR.
MotorMouths
Over the past year we've tracked more than 30,000 published car reviews, including reviews by Consumer Reports as well as 100 other major publications. There is absolutely a correlation between review scores given to vehicles by publications that accept advertising and junkets, and those that do not. Make of that what you will.
J3L2404
"Example 7: A college student who has earned a reputation as a video game expert maintains a personal weblog or “blog” where he posts entries about his gaming experiences. Readers of his blog frequently seek his opinions about video game hardware and software. As it has done in the past, the manufacturer of a newly released video game system sends the student a free copy of the system and asks him to write about it on his blog. He tests the new gaming system and writes a favorable review. Because his review is disseminated via a form of consumer-generated media in which his relationship to the advertiser is not inherently obvious, readers are unlikely to know that he has received the video game system free of charge in exchange for his review of the product, and given the value of the video game system, this fact likely would materially affect the credibility they attach to his endorsement. Accordingly, the blogger should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he received the gaming system free of charge. The manufacturer should advise him at the time it provides the gaming system that this connection should be disclosed, and it should have procedures in place to try to monitor his postings for compliance. "

From FTC Endorsement Guidelines http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides...

anamax
Meanwhile, reporters who sleep with the people who they cover are A-Okay. So are reporters who trade access for coverage.

Govt - solving the wrong problem, and badly.

zephyrfalcon
"Can you really trust the product opinion of someone who hasn't put out their hard earned cash to acquire it?"

Hm, but in this case, I don't think the item he received as a bribe was the same as what was reviewed. (Otherwise it would be obvious which company it was, as he asked for a MacBook Air.)

jacquesm
I guess we can count that as a real endorsement for Apple though.
ErrantX
They didn't bribe him. He asked them for the bribe.

We dont know what happened in the past (one prior incident is mentioned) so without knowing the details it's hard to even begin to make a judgement. :)

gte910h
They did bribe him.

There are 2 components for a bribe: One party bringing it up, and one party paying another.

If the person with the power brings it up, it's called "Asking for a bribe". If the other party brings it up, it's called "offering a bribe". In either case, the actual paying the money is called bribery (and the act "accepting a bribe"). The offering is only attempted bribery.

The companies definitely bribed him, and possibly face criminal culpability if anyone gives a crap to prosecute them.

ErrantX
Well I was referring to the incident we have been told about: where the company did not resort to bribery.

Also I'd point out that really if the way it goes down is "give me a laptop if you want a [good] review" and they pay up that is actually racketeering :)

gte910h
I actually believe racketeering has an element of something else illegal, ie, gambling or violence.
mronge
I want to add that he wrote a post about my company and product (Rocketbox, http://www.getrocketbox.com), but ABSOLUTELY NO COMPENSATION CHANGED HANDS. I would think that most of the companies he wrote about are in a similar situation, where they did nothing wrong but their article has also been deleted.

It's too bad this happened, I really hope he learns from this experience.

jacquesm
And that is exactly why this is such a bad thing, basically any company the guy ever wrote about is now 'under suspicion', which is why TC should clean up this mess completely.
SamAtt
To be fair I'm not sure that's possible. I doubt any company that bribed him is going to admit it and the kid's dishonest so there's no telling how true what he says is. If Techcrunch posts who they think offered a bribe and are wrong that's even worse (not to mention being liable)

I think Techcrunch has done all they can do by deleting every post this guy wrote

jacquesm
Good point, I hadn't thought of that.

But it just feels weird to have that shadow hang over the rest of those companies, they obviously didn't do anything wrong.

albertsun
This kind of bribe is not technically a crime, it's just a violation of journalistic ethics. The way I see it, even if the company had offered the compensation, there's nothing wrong with the company doing everything it can to get itself coverage and press attention. It's on the journalist to uphold their own ethical standards.
jacquesm
When you're approaching a 17 year old I think you have to go easy on them, if he initiated it it is a completely different story.

Edit: and that's accepting as 'read' that this is s.o.p in the blogosphere which I am not yet prepared to believe.

webwright
I think this is a lot more common than folks realize. Links = SEO win. Links from important sites = lots more SEO win. With my tiny little blog I (weekly) get people emailing me offering to pay me small sums for a review or link.

edit: I want to make it clear right here and now that I will write about any company for a MacBook Air. :-)

gojomo
Whatever transpired could have been far more subtle than, "gimme macbook, get story". For example:

"So glad to meet you. So happy to be your friend. Is there any way we can help each other out as friends? I love to help people out. I can give slots at my conferences, and I know a lot of bright kids looking for unpaid internships, and oh by the way I do some writing for TechCrunch too. Do I need any help? Well, I always want to hear about good story ideas and meet other interesting people. As my boss Michael Arrington has said, send us scoops and we'll think fondly of you and be more likely to report on you later! Also my side projects are hurting for equipment. You know, Company X gave us a projector when our old one broke. Why, yes, that was the company I wrote about on TC last month."

That is, the behavior could have been on the same continuum of "we know everybody, we trade favors, the old rules of fastidious disclosure of every slight-conflict-of-interest can't possibly work in this new world" that Arrington himself has used to defend his own practices. The companies that did 'pay' may have thought of it as just cementing an important friendship, not an explicit quid-pro-quo. Brusilovsky may have gone too far, but in the ways 17-year olds often do, because they understand only some of the patterns of their role models, without all the subtleties and limits.

That would explain both Brusilovsky's vague 'mistakes were made' and 'a line were crossed' phrasing and TC's reluctance to be more specific in allegations or shaming the favor-traders.