I don’t usually pop out a second blog missive on a Sunday, but shortly after finishing the prior post on the whole Leo Laporte/Michael Arrington throwdown, I was pointed to some more of the “wisdom” of the afore mentioned Mr. Arrington in a NY Times article from yesterday. (Thanks to tweets/retweets from @irincarmon and the ubiquitous @brianstelter)
In the solid piece from the Times’ Damon Darlin–Arrington, who is also the publisher of the influential and highly read website TechCrunch, makes one of the most amazing/astonishing statements that I’ve read in… well, maybe ever.
In defending the publishing of information that he knows to be questionable or perhaps even flat out, almost assured to be wrong, without a shred of support–Arrington drops this little bon mot:
“Getting it right is expensive…getting it first is cheap.”
Update: Arrington has blasted back against writer Darlin and the Times with an interesting post that includes one of the favorite responses of anyone who has ever been “wronged” by the press, stating that he was misquoted by his words being taken out of context. Read Arrington’s version of what he told Darlin here.
This moment alleged quote, brings me to think about my colleague Marc Robbins, a sportscaster at our television station who loves to set up a classic highlight on the air, with his now almost trademark expression: “Oh no he didn’t…(pause for the moment) Oh Yes he did!”
Did somebody rewrite the rules of journalism and forget to copy me on the freakin’ memo?
I mean I get it, and I like reading rumor, speculations, observations, and any other kind of obfuscations that are out there. TMZ is not the New York Times, but I can and absolutely do read and enjoy both.
But I’m not going to TMZ to read about the latest facts on anything serious. Arrington’s TechCrunch seems to want to be taken seriously as a source of news and information about internet companies and the products they make. So to admit that you throw nearly anything out there in a pretty naked attempt to generate viewer traffic to your website–really strikes me as being, as the English like to put it, just not cricket.
It’s not bad enough that most people rank journalism as a profession as being somewhere between ambulance chasing lawyers and prostitutes who don’t charge a lot for their services. But do we have to now defend against the fact that anyone who owns a printing press–or the current day equivalent, a website–can throw out whatever shit they want to? Where does that leave those of us who are trying to make an honest living at it (which is getting harder to do every damn day, my friends) when we have to clean that randomly-sprayed feces off of ourselves?
I mean sure, God forbid that anyone try to report by any kind of standard that might suggest that we even TRY to get it right, before putting it out for public consumption. Who is going to keep score on that kind of performance? Do we just believe that the people don’t care and therefore get what they deserve?
Damn it! I just realized that Arrington has sucked me into a Laporte-like tirade of my own.