Couple of days of ago, I read an interesting article on Mike Arrington’s absence from a conference. The fact that the article appeared on Venturebeat (IMHO a worthy adversary to Techcrunch) was more interesting than the article itself. The writer whines about the absence of Mike from that and some other conferences.

Everyone knows this despicable incident. Also, being a longtime (actually pretty longtime) reader of TechCrunch I know what happened at a similar conference a few years back. Why would someone walk into the lion’s den one more time? The article was more a melancholy than an opinion piece.

The conference in itself had a pretty stupid premise. PR people impose embargoes. TechCrunch hates embargoes. VentureBeat respects embargoes.  That’s Valley Politics 101. So people really thought they could talk Mike (and others) into respecting embargoes? They would have a better chance talking Iran out of  its nuclear program.

When everyone knows everyone’s firm position on the topic, such a conference is pretty pointless to start with. Gathering at a set location to discuss ideas might be prudent for a church choir group. For the Silicon Valley stalwarts and Internet pioneers, not so much. VOIP and web conferencing anyone? At the end of the day the world got warmer by a bunch people who drove & flew in to gather in a hall.

Coming back to the article, I am pretty sure the writer had a secret grudge on his Editor in Chief.

At right, a Getty Images photo of Big Mike and leading media pundit Jeff Jarvis chatting at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich. By contrast, there’s not a single shot of VentureBeat chief Matt Marshall in Getty Images.

Now why would someone say such stuff? People are unique and it is impossible to compare them. Personally I hold the same respect and awe for both Mike and Matt. While I like Mike for his outspoken attitude, I like Matt for his clarity of thought and humbleness.

Secondly, the article seems to be a me-so-perfect piece to get a you-are-such-a-good-boy-yes-you-are cookie from the PR crowd.  Venturebeat’s strength is in its straight forward reporting and insightful content. Thats the reason I read VB. The article would have been perfect for Valleywag or any other Gawker network blog.