Freedom of the press has turned into the belief that 'I can say and do what ever I want and if you don't plaly ball with me I will destroy your credibility, your company, your life.' Boo on the press.
Wow, glad I have better things to do than read drivel like that on a regular basis...good on Stoot for defending his ex-woman...nice to see that people can still be good guys like that.
Wow - I've worked in a few startups. Things can move incredibly fast, and what's true (or in flux) in the morning may be completely different in the afternoon.
The idea that Caterina had any responsibility to a journalist to confirm or deny rumors or give the current status of whatever was going on inside her company is just F*&^ing LUDICROUS. And for him to put out that petty piece of gossipy crap to tarnish her reputation is both narcissistic and unethical in the extreme.
I used to pride myself in being a journalist when I was a writer and editor during my University years. Recently I've been discovering that the press has lost extensive amounts of quality and I've been actually more embarrassed than anything else when I talk about my journalistic past. This just takes the cake, lol. I'd almost rather read Perez Hilton. Almost.
And jasbo - having been through several startups myself, you put it wonderfully - F'ing ludicrous is right. There is absolutely *no* responsibility of the employee of a company to a journalist to confirm or deny rumors. That may fall to the PR/Marketing folks, but they don't have to say anything and can ignore the request for information entirely and not say anything. Or say "We are not in a position where we will confirm or deny these statements."
Stoot's a class act. Also, that article lacked any sort of integrity. It would be almost humorous if it wasn't so mean-spirited. I'm sure any tech start up worth merit will survive just fine without being announced or supported on techcrunch.
lol, oh jeez, thats just sad--- and very pathetic!!! that guy seemed like a child with a temper tantrum!!!, i mean sheesh, does anyone really want to read that!? i really dont think so, no point in posting hateful and spiteful comments.. It gets No one anywhere!
I basically spent the past four years of my life dedicated to journalism, which I really do consider a noble profession (at least in theory) and this article makes me queasy. It's the picture of unprofessional. The first thing you realize as a journalist is that sometimes sources don't return your calls, even when it would seem to be in their best interest to do so. That doesn't make them malicious or conniving - more often than not, they're busy or unable to comment. It's a disgusting abuse of publishing power that Michael Arrington used TechCrunch as a public forum for his personal hard feelings about how stories involving a source panned out. I think it reads more like the catty journal of a high school outsider than a professional journalist. I'm all for newspapers using their voice to take a stand, when it's proper, but this is ridiculous. Arrington did a brilliant job of promoting the belief that journalistic integrity is dead, while probably burning his credibility with all future potential-sources who read this "article." People like him are the reason I've shied away from my passion.
Also: he said that sometimes you have to write a story without contacting a source first. That's pure baloney used as an excuse by lazy slobs who like the title "journalist" more than they actually like the profession itself. You always contact the source before writing an article - if your attempts are unsuccessful and your story is time-sensitive, that's the only time you publish anyways. If anyone ever tells you otherwise, please slap them across the face with a dead fish.
The more I thought about it, the more disgusted I became & I actually pasted that rant as a comment on the actual "article." It may seem like no big deal, but I really hate posting on public forums, particularly using my real id. Journalistic integrity is just so important...
michael arrington has been dead to me for a long, long time.
it is amazing how much young startups cow-tow to that guy. i wish i could just shake them and say "you don't need a blog post on techcrunch, you need a good product!"
techcrunch isn't the finish line or even a way station and you don't have to kiss arrington's ring before launching stuff .. really.
I don't really see how this tread is relevant to the world of Glitch? Why not let Stoot have some anonymity (for a bit)... I understand the support, I give it! ... but please, let's lay this to rest...
Ok, reading ALL of the foregoing, I'm thinking I will definitely not bother to waste my time reading some piece of trash article by someone that can only get attention by trying to inflate their own diaper with useless crap. I know, if the seriously experience gamers that have posted here are disgusted, then I will surely toss my cookies. I don't need anyone that hasn't spent time in Glitch to grief on my trip. Thanks for the crib notes :) or are those happy "crab" notes?
Arrington is a troll. One of my favorite Leo Laporte moments is when Leo threw Arrington off of one of his shows a couple of years back for questioning Leo's objectiveness after getting a Palm Pre review unit. Arrington got what was coming to him.
Watch it here. Warning: language is tame to start but gets stronger as it goes. :)
I am with Sadie on this, not so much because it's irrelevent to Glitch, there's lots of threads that have nothing to do with Glitch...but it just seems like some personal shizz . I mean, that's crazy to say because it's on the internet, but it's there because Arrington is apparently a compulsive career provocateur. He's calling out Caterina but if someone close to her reacts, so much the better for him.
And besides: there has been entirely TOO MUCH ASS KISSING OF DEVS in this forum. How can we expect to get an awesome game if we constantly lay them down in the soft cushions, ply them with frothy drink and wave big fancy feather-fans at them?
Arrington is a misogynist bully and always has been as far as I can tell. TMZCrunch they should call it, they trade in rumors and nasty as much as "news".
@ Nanookie
We're lulling them all into a false sense of security, that way when we inevitably get angry about some decision in the future and turn nasty, it'll be more effective lol
No comment on the article, other than I'd find it kind of creepy if I posted a response to someone's article and saw a thread discussing my response.
Maybe that's just me though.
Ass kissing? Rubbish. We appreciate the devs, and people get excited about the game, but there's a grand amount of criticism, second-guessing, and suggestions on the forum, too.
So people are interested in Stoot's doings outside of Glitch, what's the big deal? No one ever said this forum was strictly game-talk only.
@Ebil :P That's the price one pays for being an online celebrity :P
I'm a reporter and have been for more than 20 years. Until now, I had only the vaguest idea of who Arrington was, but I can tell you what he's not after reading that: he's not a journalist. Glitchy above has it right: you ALWAYS call a person/company/politician/celebrity before running a story about them. Always. And yes, sometimes they use that heads-up to try to break whatever the news is in a more sympathetic venue, but too fucking bad. Them's the breaks. I will admit to having pushed that call a little close to deadline, to give them less of a reaction time, but the idea of not informing someone you are writing about them, and thereby not getting their side of the story, is anathema. It's absolutely essential.
Even worse - to announce this AS A POLICY, suggests he has no idea what a petty, unprofessional creep that makes him look. Add to that the not-so-veiled threats and the admission that he sat on information for months that he now may publish as revenge.....seriously? In a just world, this guy would lose his job for these shenanigans. I certainly would if I tried this shit. But I work for the Decrepit Old Media, not blogs. We still have some standards, I swear!
What I didn't see in there was any mention of Butterfield. Did he add to his already long list of journalistic sins by editing the copy without saying so? Or are there comments there somewhere that my browser is blocking?
@helcat this guy is like the tech version of perez hilton. What they lack in standards, they make up for in following and page views.
Stewart wasn't mentioned in the article copy, he just commented on the article (@nanookie, it's still there, just fallen off the first or second pages of comments).
To those who consider this discussion to be unmasking Stoot's anonymity (?), getting involved in devs personal/online-industry affairs, or dev ass kissing, I don't think it's any of these things. Glum Pudding explained it well when he said : "A lot of Glitch testers also tested GNE [including the OP], were early Flickr users, etc. and have known the staff [ and Caterina was part of the staff in that era] for a long time."
Nanookie, oops, sorry, I just re-read and I come off kinda mean. Dang you, internet! I will never learn how to nuance in this medium.
*welcomes breeze from fan, it's hot over here*
(plus I didn't see it was you writing. Don't know if that would have made a difference...well, it probably would have because I like you >:) But on this forum I admit I almost never notice who writes the posts, the username is so tiny!)
@Glum & Eureka, my comment wasn't trying to diminish anyone's love for the creator/s :) But, as Nanookie said "it just seems like some personal shizz" that is why I said "let Stoot have some anonymity" - meaning, why should every tidbit be fodder for the community & forums? It was probably difficult for him to read this guys attack the first time around (that, and the snarky comment about his divorce). Why give it more attention here?
@Stoot - I wonder if Caterina has a case to sue his ass for libel.
In my *ONE* college course on journalism, my prof pounded into our heads that you better be damn sure you know what you're saying, because one wrong word can ruin you - anywhere. FB, private blog, whatever.
Libel is:
Knowingly and maliciously printing false information that damages another's reputation.
Assington's post sounds an awful lot like it could be libelous to me.
@Sadie, I get what you're saying. I don't really think there is anything wrong with this post, though, I do think it is probably an isolated event, not likely to be repeated. I would completely agree with you and draw the line at people digging up past stuff for discussion or anything like that. I think that's completely unnecessary here (or elsewhere). The way I see it, this "good on you, Stoot" post here, and all the followup here is 100x better than a bunch of us jumping on the TechCrunch comments section to say the same thing.
Now on to something else, when I first saw the post, I misread the title and read it as "Yay Stoot strikes a blow against alcoholism" and I thought "Wait, what? I just got some new cocktail recipes at the end of the last test, and I was looking forward to shaking them up and getting hooch-happy in the next test" You can imagine my surprise and confusion when I clicked on the post and read the content.
@Eureka, thank you for getting what I was trying to say. I surly don't want any Glitch to think that I'm not in support of Stoot or Tiny Speck (I've given them my money, and will continue to do so). I admit I wasn't seeing it from your POV (to me it seems like water cooler gossip), I see that it was intended as a "good on you, Stoot". So, I'll leave it as that :)
How, watching the video Herp Derp posted, and reading through Helcat's article... Michael Arrington really, really, really sounds like a giant arsehole. Sounds like? Is. Through and through.
I can't help but think 'Mashable would never post such things' :')
yeah sorry, i see how this post might be creepy. i did not mean it as such, but at three months postpartum i can not use eglantiny-related sleep deprivation as my excuse. so anyway as someone (eureka?) said, consider it a one off.... and zacharia, as for stoot's good looks, i am unable to comment on them because i am adhering to nanookie's suggestion that we cease all dev flattery. enough of carrots! time for the stick! anyway why discuss real life when it is dwarfed in comparison to the all-consuming game! incoheringly, e.