Below is a comment response I made to Anthony Citrano‘s recent blog post, Gauging TechCrunch’s Moral Fiber In One Sentence.  In my opinion, this is the gist of the article, “Last night, Arrington publicly feigned moral contemplation about an ‘ethical line’ he didn’t want to cross, then closed the same article with ‘more posts coming soon.’  Bring me the vomit bag.” This is my response:

I think this is the sort of thing that is going to drive the conversation off the blogs and back into the “ethical” embrace of the unholy priesthood of journalism. At least proper mainstream outlets can honor an embargo.

PR firms and publicists will respond, over time, with once bitten, twice shy when it comes to relating to the type of A-list blogs like TechCrunch, platforms that have, rightfully, the same sort of influence as newspapers and other media outlets but are under no restriction in terms of how they handle news: they’re bloggers, they’re blogs, they’re subjective, and they’re proud.

This isn’t about blogs, this is about terms of engagement and this is about trust. Hell, some of my best friends are reporters and some of these embargoes are rushed out of error, but in a newsroom, if you break an embargo, you get in a lot of trouble and you could be fired.

This all boils down to the web of trust: as long as getting on TechCrunch remains as important and essential for the tech community, Arrungton can — and will — do anything he bloody wants, no matter how much of an ethical deficit it projects.

That said, do you think Twitter will ever engage with TechCrunch after this? Well, I don’t mean to be cynical, but I think so.

I think this is all Kabuki theater. I think people in Silicon Valley love the attention and love the hype.

Besides, whenever my firm gets some column inches on TechCrunch or ValleyWag for our clients, our clients think the sun rises and sets on us and the client gets attention from Tech blogs and sites from around the world.

Michael Arrington’s influence is real. His power is palpable. I am sure bulbs light up in his fingers even before he screws them into lamps. I am sure he needs to use hair gel for fear that his electricity will show when his hair stands on end.

Until that ends, he — and his properties — can do whatever he wants with impunity in much the same way that Rush and Beck can on the radio.

What do you think?  What is your opinion.  Please pop them both here as well as over on Anthony’s awesome site.

I try to follow Anthony Citrano‘s blog, Cosmic Tap, but had fallen behind. I have to reblog his article, Reminder: People Are Stupid. I have always considered this to be true (see Wisdumb of Crowds: SAVE THE WHALES), but always need as much affirmation as possible, and Mr. Citrano give me all the ammo I need — but we do agree on one thing:

“I don’t think everyone is stupid – I just think the average American is too distracted or preoccupied or apathetic to pay attention to the stuff that some of us feel is important.”

Here’s the whole article, Reminder: People Are Stupid:

Whenever I hear about a poll telling me what a group of Americans think, I generally write it off. Now, folks, I don’t think everyone is stupid – I just think the average American is too distracted or preoccupied or apathetic to pay attention to the stuff that some of us feel is important.

Today, the press is all over the CBS/NYT poll that shows 81% of Americans feel the nation is “on the wrong track.” I agree with those Americans, but probably wouldn’t share their reasoning. What didn’t get as much attention was the recent “News IQ” poll by Pew Internet Life that drilled down a bit to explore what we know about things like our society, our government, and the war being fought with our dollars and our permission. I was pleasantly surprised at how relatively well people did.

Some highlights:

• Only 28% of respondents know approximately how many Americans have died in Iraq (and Pew notes that this is an all-time low and “awareness is dropping”).
• 70% knew Condi Rice is Secretary of State
• 62% could identify “Sunni” as the branch of Islam fighting the Shia in Iraq
• 56% knew McCain was from Arizona
• 40% knew Howard Dean chairs the DNC
• 35% knew Ben Bernanke chairs the Federal Reserve

Of course, these were phone interviews of 1000 people who were willing to sit through a phone trivia test, and who were given four multiple choice answers from which to choose. I frankly find the results impressive, but I’ll bet if they had conducted the same survey outside a Wal-Mart in middle America without the benefit of “multiple choice”, the numbers would have been much, much worse.