Alexia Tsotsis

For those of you that followed and helped me get through my car wreck around this time last year: This week, arbitration ruled that the guy who ran a red, injured me and totaled my car was 100% at fault (he denied responsibility at the scene of the accident).

So almost year later, I get some closure. And a check. 

Pro tip: Never get hit by a car. It messes with you. 

Thank you again friends and family and especially my team at TechCrunch for making this terrible experience slightly less terrible. Thank you. 

I’m tired of writing about general interest news on TechCrunch. Namely because I’m tired of debating what *is* a tech story and having to have a hardcore filter thus, because of optics and the prominence of our publication. 

In the course of this weekend I’ve read the Society of Professional Journalism’s “Code of Ethics” three times, just to figure out if in actuality I am a journalist. As far as I can tell, I am not one. Because I have a huge problem with other people approving of and being comfortable with what I write. Because I don’t think conflicts of interest are avoidable. And a lot more reasons. 

Also, as hard as it it is to admit, I would probably go ballistic if I had to subscribe to the approval mechanisms that exist in other, more traditional, news organizations, or more than ephemerally have deal with the kind of postgame holier-than-thou judgment and analysis that is par for the course in the traditional media industry, which very clearly hates itself.

From The New York Times today, covering the coverage of the Boston bombing coverage. 

“Even good reporters with good sources can end up with stories that go bad,” says this article.

THANKS. NO SHIT. Yes, we are human, we make mistakes. Looking for someone to blame is the most basic of our behaviors, and gets amplified at collective moments of unease: “Media (And Especially Reddit) Is To Blame For Boston Tragedy,” is what we’ve been doing all week. Basically.

This sucks. Do better. You’re paid to write the truth, not to eloquently throw others under a meta-analysis bus. The New York Times should change its name to Hindsight Is 20/20.

That’s all for now, I’m going to get back to scheduling guest posts.

Image via gomery

My colleague MG Siegler has written something pretty damning about the way tech blogs cover general news stories, implicating TechCrunch and some others as “profiteering assholes” because of how we chose to cover the tragic Boston Marathon attacks.

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I once met Gloria Steinem. In 2006, I worked as a temp receptionist at the fancy New York City hair salon where she got her hair done. 

After I checked her in for her appointment, I asked her, having read about the seemingly insurmountable obstacles she faced in trying to accomplish her life’s work, “Why did you do it? Why did you fight so hard for what you believed in? Did you just persevere or something?”

And she responded, “I did it because it was better than the alternative.”

People deal with shock in different ways. While most of us sit at our desks waiting for the Internet to insufficiently answer our questions as to why the Sandy Hook shootings happened, many of us are also dealing with the banalities of day-to-day work on a pre-holiday Friday; “It is terrible what happened in Connecticut. Did you get my email about Monday’s meeting?”

These types of conversations around tragic events, both online and offline, cause existential discord: There are very few people who wouldn’t agree that the shooting of children (children!) is an extremely horrific event. We are definitely in the majority.

But it is okay to talk about work right now just like it’s okay to be extremely distraught over this news. Humans have very strange and different ways of processing sadness.

When I found out what is possibly some of the saddest news I’ve ever received, I drove from Huntington Beach to LA and sat silently in my car in the parking lot of a public library for 3 hours. And then drove back. Inexplicably.

And no, I did not tweet about it and won’t post what it is here — Because I prefer to deal with some things privately.

But it’s fine if you want to tweet about your feelings regarding the Connecticut shooting, or anything really. Or not. And if some of you don’t feel like writing or sharing a story about a photosharing app (or do) for the next couple of hours, that’s okay too.

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“There is also a privacy issue with Twttr. Every user has a public page that shows all of their messages. Messages from that person’s extended network are also public. I imagine most users are not going to want to have all of their Twttr messages published on a public website.”

Via.

“Go build awesome stuff and change the world so we can write about it and change the world even more. Because between life and death there is meaning, even if it’s what we create: The value of a role model is that they teach you what’s possible.”

— Eric Eldon, in “Rest In Peace, Charles Alfred Eldon”

Here. Except now reported by The New York Times.  

Image via.

“In Silicon Valley, some people are worrying about which multimillion-dollar home they can buy — there are only so many available, after all — or whether their handcrafted jeans subtly signal that the wearer is more attuned to aesthetics, like, say, Steve Jobs was.”

— Nick Bilton

Fact: The only actual tech person who wears said jeans is Jack Dorsey.

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frankocean:

i’ll take the positive and not so positive adjectives about me in stride.

When my friends start playing “Call Me Maybe” … 

whatshouldwecallme:

 I used to join in like:

But now I’m just like:

So I’m still sort of shocked and still can’t believe that it happened, but I had my computer stolen and got in a car wreck on the same day this week (Monday).

Unfortunately it was also the day I made the Internet explode because I cursed and referred to drinking in a TechCrunch post about Flipboard and old media. My car is totaled (the other driver ran a red), my laptop is gone and half the Internet thinks I should be fired. Oy. 

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Presented without (too much) commentary:

WHY SO SERIOUS?

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The following advice isn’t for Jack Dorsey, it’s for the 30 year-old dude who still dresses entirely in startup swag, or who owns five black ‘Steve Jobs’ turtlenecks or who wears white athletic socks and dress shoes or who still hasn’t opened up the seams in his jacket pockets. And, more importantly, WANTS THIS TO CHANGE. 

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2007 Roelof via parislemon … 

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MG managed to capture what is so unique about Arrington last night in this post about covering Instagram’s rise.

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12:06: Alexandra Tsotsis So I bought Chanel No.5 today

12:07 Friend are you smelly?

12:07 Alexandra Tsotsis it’s a younger toned down version

12:07 Alexandra Tsotsis my aunt used to work there

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