Arrington Posts His Disclosure Policy(?)

Early this morning Mike Arrington, yes the guy who panned the idea of Disclosure Policies, posted something at CrunchNotes that looks an awful like his TechCrunch Disclosure Policy. It basically says don't expect TC to adhere to traditional journalistic conflict standards, TC is built on insider/conflicted information, and he will disclose all financial conflicts. It remains silent/fuzzy exactly how Mike will disclose non-financial conflicts such as exclusive PR traffic, free passes/product, friends or competitors to his investments -- but today's post was a huge step in the right direction for transparency.

Although Mike's recent steps on this topic have been staggered (Oct 25: calling for a Disclosure Policy framework, Oct 29: blasting DisclosurePolicy.org's work towards a DP framework, Nov 1: posts his disclosure policy amid some rants), he should be commended for showing some leadership on the topic behind Scoble's recent adoption of a Disclosure Policy created here.

However, just documenting a policy on disclosures isn't enough to drive audience education and blogosphere change. Once Mike takes the small but critical steps of labelling it his 'Disclosure Policy' (maybe after carving out the rants) and linking to his 'Disclosure Policy' from each TC page, he will have taken one small step for Mike and one giant leap for the blogosphere.

Mike, if you do this it will drive the mainstream media crazy because it's better transparency than they could ever adopt. Come on, give it a try and let's see if we can fuel a transparency revolution together...

Tags: DisclosurePolicy, Disclosure Policy