And don't forget, while it is unethical to intentionally deceive a reporter, a large part of a journalist's job is to vet sources and do some research to make sure claims are true.
In reality, blogs make their money on advertising so if they publish downright fabrications or knowingly stretch the truth, they do not care as long as they are getting clicks.
Not sure if you're saying this was unethical, but what I emailed them was 100% true. It's just that I disclosed only one reason for starting BetaList (wanting a platform like that) and not the other one (wanting to leverage TechCrunch's article to also promote my own startup). Whether that's deceit depends on whether you consider the other reason being relevant to TechCrunch. As far as they were concerned they wrote about a cool platform that was interesting to their audience.
It would be different of course if I swapped out the sites at the last minute, lied to them about how long I've been working on it, etc, etc, but that wasn't the case.
Again, not sure if you were saying you thought it was unethical, just trying to clarify.
Certainly not. I don't think there's anything unethical about what you described.
What I wrote was in response to the notion that he would be angered had you actually "tricked" TechCrunch into writing about you. They, after all, are the one's publishing the story so if they print information that is untrue that they didn't bother vetting, that's their fault, not anybody else's.
If I send a bogus tip to the Washington Post and they immediately run a story on it without question, that's incredibly irresponsible on their part and the fault lies with them. That may seem like an unlikely scenario, but the same thing happens on a daily basis on blogs and slightly lesser-known news outlets with readership in the millions.
I honestly didn't consider for a second I'd feel bad for the blogs. The reality is they get tons of e-mails and you have to sell it like you'd sell your handmade flutes in the market to somebody that is bombarded by people selling flutes. Now, lying about it through your teeth is a different story.
In reality, blogs make their money on advertising so if they publish downright fabrications or knowingly stretch the truth, they do not care as long as they are getting clicks.
In other words, don't feel bad for the blogs.