TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reports that media relations has gone to a whole new level of bad: he was spat upon this week and was the subject of a death threat last summer.
Serious stuff, and seriously out-of-bounds, it goes without saying. Arrington writes a blog, for godsakes. Yes, it is influential, but no company's life or death literally depends on Arrington's good graces. At least, that's what I think is at the root of this -- TechCrunch is known to drive traffic, so everyone wants Arrington to sprinkle some of his pixie dust on them. When he doesn't, people get disappointed -- or, it seems, worse.
So point of perspective #1 -- Arrington writes a blog. If your marketing strategy depends on getting mentioned in his blog, your company sucks and is going to die anyway. If you don't want your company to suck, find other ways of getting publicity.
Point of perspective #2 -- Arrington is a rare figure in the media, someone who has insisted on making up his own rules. I believe that these stupid actions by certain individuals are an unfortunate reaction to his go-it-alone style. So I would a) advise serious PR and media relations people to take a breath and continue to do PR with TechCrunch using proven and intelligent techniques, and b) I would advise Arrington to look at how he does business, compare it to how other successful media franchises do business, and adjust accordingly.
As Arrington titled his post, "something's got to change."
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