The Debate Over Publishing Stolen Twitter Documents - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

I suspect this is going to backfire on TechCrunch in a big way

When TechCrunch told its readers that it would publish some of the material, the blog received hundreds of comments, many from readers who thought TechCrunch should keep the material private.

But Mr. Arrington pointed out in a subsequent post that much of what his blog and many other publications publish is confidential material.

“If you disagree with that, ok,” he wrote. “But then you also have to disagree with the entire history of the news industry. ‘News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising,’ is something Lord Northcliffe, a newspaper magnate, supposedly said. I agree wholeheartedly.”

The Debate Over Publishing Stolen Twitter Documents - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com