Jonathan Poritsky:

The journalistic standards The Verge’s staff have displayed in the past week have been, collectively, the last straw. I don’t need the site in my life to begin with, but they have now broken the one thing a news outlet must preserve in order to keep a reader: trust. I have lost faith in the endeavor completely; I can’t trust anything I read on the site anymore.

Interesting article about The Verge’s journalistic integrity. At first I thought this was pretty harsh, but after re-reading it and giving it some thought, Poritsky may be right. I don’t think the guys at The Verge are bad people, but I think they’ve got their format twisted up. When you’re a small blog you have the flexibility to review things your college buddies produce, but that freedom is out the window once you are a “news” site –and a huge one at that. The Verge needs to choose who they are. They aren’t a blog. A commentor shouldn’t be the one to tell an author they need to add disclosure or source-link properly (something that’s come up over and over with The Verge). Admittedly, I’m only a casual reader of the site, but Poristky’s piece doesn’t make me want to visit more often.