Arrington Calls Gawker’s Denton ‘Amoral’

Blogging impressario Michael Arrington gave an interview to Portfolio Friday. In it, we learn a bit about how his Tech Crunch site works and his views on some of the most infamous bloggers, including Nick Denton, which runs rival Gawker Media.

Arrington, 37, told Portfolio’s Lloyd Grove he started TechCrunch after blowing $33 million he got from a venture he sold on the cusp of the dot-com burst. Intriguingly, he calls today the people behind many of the startups TechCrunch writes about “modern day pirates.”

“They tend to be bright individuals, although sometimes they’re uneducated and they become stars purely on will and intelligence,” he said in the interview. Arrington said entrepreneurs abandon secure high-paying jobs that put food on their family’s table in order to chase risk.

Arrington operates TechCrunch from a rented Atherton, Calif. house. He said the blog has a staff of 8 or 9, most notable, Business 2.0 journalist-turned blogger Erick Schonfeld and former Fox exec Heather Harde as CEO. Harde has “a big chunk” of the company, Arrington said.

TechCrunch gets about 2.8 million unique monthly visitors, the most with salaries around $100,000. With that sort of user profile, no wonder the site is earning $200,000 a month - the last figure released before Harde muzzled Arrington’s penchant for talking revenue.

Arrington said TechCrunch gets its scoops by publishing before traditional journalists would feel comfortable. Rather than waiting to confirm with multiple sources and doing some research, Arrington said he often goes with a single-source rumor, explaining if he tried to get confirmation, people he spoke with either won’t comment on the record or just don’t know what he’s talking about.

While risky, the TechCrunch creator said the result is a type of community journalism, where other blogs get the tip and try to track down more information.

Arrington called Nick Denton “amoral.” Denton, the man behind gossip sites Gawker and Valleywag, has been often criticized, the latest for his role in the e-mail firing of a top Gawker editor.