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As yet another jousting match goes down between a member of the New York City media elite and a Silicon Valley-based blogger dude, we're starting to get concerned that journalists covering the tech industry have no idea what they're doing. Robert Scoble is the latest geek in the crosshairs, after NewsBeast's technology editor Dan Lyons took aim at the veteran tech blogger for allegedly scheming behind closed doors in order to create a venture capital firm that would invest in the companies that Scoble blogs about. Scoble starkly denied the report. Lyons apologized. Twitter fumed.
On the micro level, the specifics of the spat seem a little silly. Lyons' report paints Robert Scoble as a money-hungry hack more interested in building a portfolio of soon-to-be profitable companies so that he can make a fortune. "Traditional journalists cringe at this kind of 'hacks for hire' business model," Lyons wrote, citing an anonymous he-said-she-said source that claimed Scoble was firing up his own VC firm. "But from an utterly cynical perspective, it's kind of brilliant—as long as you can get over the whole 'ethics' thing." This accusation obviously rests on the idea that Scoble is going to start a VC firm. Scoble says he is not. "Truth is my life rocks and I am not sure I want to screw that up," Scoble blogged. "My contract with you is that I will tell you [readers] when I have conflicts of interest and then you’ll have to decide which list you put me on, or even if you keep listening to me."