Many, many pairs of eyes have been rolling skyward today over a spat between TechCrunch and Wired.
Arrington took a remarkable amount of offence at a really rather mild criticism by Wired writer Betsy Schiffman, who questioned why "the Washington Post, a paper known for the sort of reporting that can take down US presidents, is publishing content written by a dude who invests in the companies he writes about". And also confessed to calling TechCrunch 'ButtMunch' in the office, which is puerile, but hardly devasting.
Photo by roland on Flickr. Some rights reserved.
You might've thought that kind of comment would be water off on old blogger's back, but no - this really dented one of those legendary blogger egos. Arrington devoted a very long post to ripping Wired and particularly Schiffman apart, and subsequently twittered that he'd have a 'Wired burning party'. Thankfully he meant the magazines rather than the office, but at least there's a boundary there.
This is both tiresome and quite surprising, because Arrington is usually nothing if not astute. But I can't express this better than Kara Swisher on AllThingsD:
"I do admire TechCrunch's energy and relentless focus and the way it has forced others to compete more rigorously in covering the Web 2.0 sector...
"But - and I can't wait to see what delightful name Arrington slings at me for saying so - TechCrunch, in accepting what is a real honor and validation from one of this country's great media organisations, should be ashamed of returning the favor by dragging the Post into a largely unprovoked and dirty gutter fight with it."
