For me, blogging and journalism began to blur long ago. I took over the Business 2.0 blog (which became the Next Net) from Damon Darlin, now technology editor at the New York Times. That was back in May 2005, one month before Michael Arrington started TechCrunch—which just goes to show that Michael and I have been on the same wavelength from the start. Of course, back then, he took blogging much more seriously than I did.

At Business 2.0, my blog was always a side project—although it grew to 50,000 feed subscribers. I was paid to write, package, and orchestrate articles for the print magazine—in addition to other sidelines, which included organizing mini-conferences and dabbling in Web video. Eventually, blogging became more important to the magazine—all writers and editors had to start one. But it could never quite shake that extracurricular tinge.

Working at TechCrunch is a completely different experience. For one thing, I no longer write long-form, narrative journalism. There is not much time for storytelling (except for weekend posts like this one). It is mostly breaking news, reporting facts, and providing analysis. At TechCrunch, I am completely focused on blogging, 24/7. With a few exceptions, no single post is very difficult to write (unlike an in-depth magazine article that can require 50 interviews and weeks of travel, for instance). But taken as a whole, blogging is actually harder. That is because the blogging never stops. Just ask my wife and kids, who now mock me by repeating back my new mantra: “I’m almost done, just one more post.”

Putting out TechCrunch is like riding a bullet train. When I jumped aboard, it was already going 150 miles per hour. Six months ago, the main TechCrunch site was attracting about two million visitors a month and it was ranked No. 4 on the Technorati 100 list of the most linked-to blogs. Today, six months later, we are within spitting distance of three million visitors a month (2.9 million, to be exact), and last week we overtook Engadget for the first time to reach the No. 1 spot on the Technorati 100. (We’ll see how long that lasts, the Huffington Post is right on our tail).

So what is the TechCrunch formula? It is hard to say other than obsession. The main TechCrunch blog is written by four of us—Michael, Duncan, Mark, and me. (When I began, there were five, but Nick Gonzalez decided to opt for the comparatively saner hours of a startup.) Despite our small size, we are a global organization. When not traveling, Michael and Mark write from California, Duncan writes from Australia, and I write from New York. Somebody is always online—often all of us. Michael literally never sleeps. It is really unhealthy.

What we do at TechCrunch is actually pretty simple. We write about Web startups and the larger tech companies that try to either copy or acquire them. Depending on the day, I could be liveblogging the launch of the Amazon Kindle, arguing about free speech in the Internet age, uncovering secret projects at Google, giving Yahoo! unsolicited acquisition advice, or writing about a hot new startup.

There is always something else to write about, and not enough time to cover it. But we live or die by how fast we can post after a story breaks, if we can’t break it ourselves. We hardly have time to proofread our posts, as anyone who’s come across one of the frequent typos in TechCrunch knows. Luckily, our readers love to point out our mistakes in comments. They are our copy editors and fact checkers. (We love you guys.) Our philosophy is that it is better to get 70 percent of a story up fast and get the basic facts right than to wait another hour (or a day) to get the remaining 30 percent. We can always update the post or do another one as new information comes in. More often than not, putting up partial information is what leads us to the truth—a source contacts us with more details or adds them directly into comments.

Some people question whether TechCrunch is even a blog anymore rather than a professional media site. But that distinction is becoming increasingly meaningless. The truth is that we are both. We compete with traditional news organizations, but with a small fraction of their staff. That is our competitive advantage. We certainly cover the news and do original reporting, but we also discuss news reported by others and are not shy about voicing our personal opinions. We are as much a filter as a source.

There is something about blogging—the immediacy, the give and take, the point of view—that helps it compete with traditional media for attention. And we don’t want to lose that. We like to speculate, argue, and debate—sometimes in ways that traditional journalists may think is unseemly. That’s okay, as long as our readers keep coming back for more.

Because what is a blog? It is a conversation with readers. And you don’t have to start a conversation knowing all the facts. But it helps if you end up with more than you start out with, and if you turn out to be right more often than wrong. Otherwise, people will stop listening to you—the same as they would with any media source.

I will tell the truth.

I will write deliberately and with accuracy.

I will acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly.

I will preserve the original post, using notations to show where I have made changes, so as to maintain the integrity of my publishing.

I will never delete a post.

I will not delete comments unless they are spam or off-topic.

I will reply to emails and comments when appropriate, and do so promptly.

I will strive for high quality with every post—including basic spellchecking.

I will stay on topic.

I will disagree with other opinions respectfully.

I will link to online references and original source materials directly.

I will disclose conflicts of interest.

I will keep private issues and topics private, since discussing private issues would jeopardize my personal and work relationships.

Talking About Disclosure: A Social Media Club Roundtable

I think about disclosure or talk about it with someone almost every day. Often it is in regards to whether or not I am able to disclose something because it has to do with advice I am giving clients, which happens all the time if you write about the field in which you work. If I am able to do so, then the question becomes whether I should write about it. Rather than just thinking about it on my own, I thought it best to organize a conversation among those who care about this issue here in San Francisco. ...

The issue of disclosure came to the forefront recently with the Edelman problems with the Wal-Marting Across America blog and then two other “flogs” that were being written by Edelman employees. The thing is, I did not want people to think I am just calling out the utter failure of the Social Media consultants at Edelman to do the right thing because I work as an independent contractor with Fleishman Hillard, a competing PR agency who used to do Wal-Mart work (I was never involved with that account). Look how much text I had to use to disclose that one portion of my interest in it. Then consider the 20 or so minutes I have spent editing that disclosure to make sure it sounded right, addressed the important points and fit into the story. I have a lot to say on the Edelman story, but so much else has already been said. I think I will be talking about it for a long time to come, because their failure to be transparent and authentic is a huge lesson for corporations which hopefully won’t be repeated, but most likely will.

My newfound emphasis on the topic of disclosure, however, came from my friend Mike Arrington’s little dustup with traditional journalists at the Online News Association conference, which Jeff Jarvis writes about here [www.buzzmachine.com] and Mike writes about here [www.crunchnotes.com]. The subsequent post by Nicholas Carr called “A Glass House” [www.roughtype.com] really struck a deep chord with me. I know Mike and I don’t believe he is purposely trying to deceive anyone, but he does have a competitive streak and many other interests across the Web 2.0 landscape, which puts him in a precarious position. From my discussions with many people, there are no truly easy ways to make disclosures and there is no standard accepted practices for how to disclose and when to disclose. As I have consulted my clients over the years, it is often the perception of impropriety that is the problem, not the actions themselves. ...

This is why I immediately resolved to do something about it and began to organize a Social Media Club Roundtable called “Talking About Disclosure.” What I hope we get from the event is a great discussion about the best practices around disclosure of interests in pursuit of a common understanding of how to properly apply the principles of transparency and authenticity. The conversation has already begun, with great articles written by Jason Calcanis (older but relevant post), Shel Holtz, Matthew Ingram, and Todd Defren. We want to bring that conversation into real time, with a focus on the solution. Also, we want to move from conversation to action, so we are hoping that we can produce a set of guidelines to recommend as best practices for people to use, which will ultimately be a part of the pledge we ask members to make when joining Social Media Club. We also will address WOMMA’s lack of action on the Edelman fiasco, which is a point Shel Holtz makes in his post [blog.holtz.com]—though I don’t know what we can do differently.

Lisa Stone brought our attention to a post by a former Edelman employee on Blogher [blogher.org] at our workshop yesterday in which Lisa points out some of the key requirements around disclosure that need to be addressed by a blogger.

What kind of commitment should bloggers make to their readers? I’m one of the people who thinks every blog owes its readers four answers, whether the blog is a corporate blog, a news blog, or a personal diary:

1. Who are the bloggers?

2. What are the bloggers doing?

3. Why are the bloggers doing this?

4. Why do I—the reader—care?

The Wal-Mart blog flunks every question. ...

Don’t ever squander the trust you have with your audience by not being completely truthful. The public (aka audience) will revolt if you do, and they will speak up and call you on it. Even though there are a number of a**holes in the world with their personal axes to grind who may attack for the sake of being able to do so, most people won’t buy into that crap—particularly if you have continuously proven your trustworthiness over time while building a great relationship with your audience....

Talking About Disclosure Round Table Recap

Wow! What a great conversation tonight over at CNET’s headquarters here in San Francisco—thanks again to Joel Sacks and Rafe Needleman for hosting us there. ...

As for the meat of the matter, it was quickly clear that the issue of disclosure is one that impacts everyone, and everyone understands its importance in the broader context. When one person makes a bad decision, everyone is impacted so it is an issue that everyone wants to work on together.

There were a few key points that emerged from my perspective:

... At the end of the conversation, Mike Arrington made a proposal that:

We begin a dialogue and process that we all agree to adhere to the outcome of in regards to what is the proper, ethical way to handle disclosure—even if it is not the one I want, I will agree to abide by the group’s decision. We also need to have a method of resolution for challenges to ethics where the process can begin in private first so that people cannot use such challenges to create controversy and generate increased page views and notoriety through baseless accusations. (paraphrased, not quoted)

... Rafe Needleman (reporter for CNET and the Webware blog) suggested we keep our initial efforts focused, perhaps, just on Technology Bloggers so we can avoid some of those muddier grey areas, and I think he is probably right about that.