TechCrunch fired one of its employees, 17-year-old Daniel Brusilovsky, earlier this month for accepting a MacBook Air from a company in exchange for a blog post. (We incorrectly referred to him, as too did TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington in his post, as an intern. Brusilovsky says he wasn’t.)
We called for TechCrunch to come clean on which company paid for press. Now, Loren Feldman of 1938 Media joins us in the hunt. His method is rather clever.
Calling it “the CrunchGate 100,” Feldman lists the various companies Brusilovsky had written about during his time at TechCrunch — no easy task, we might add, since Arrington cowardly scrubbed the kid’s work from the database. By calling these companies out individually, Feldman hopes each will come forward and state their lack of involvement with Brusilovsky. And by the process of elimination…
It’s already beginning to flower. Five start-ups have shouted their innocence in the comments of Feldman’s blog. Hopefully, more come forward. It makes the witch hunt easier for the rest of us.
Why does this matter? As we wrote a few weeks ago:
Who’s stupid business would we not have heard about if not for a happy and lucky boy who became one laptop richer?
As uncool as it is for a publication to break common ethical standards, it’s also pretty lame to help facilitate it. The bull has your back, Feldman.
