So, Paul Carr isn't really thinking it through here with this comment:

Actually, Patricia, you only have two loyalties: one is to
your readers and one is to the company that signs your
paychecks. That’s it. You do not – emphatically do not –
have a responsibility to “stay on good terms” with movie
studios.

Just like Moviefone has to maintain good relationships with studios, Techcrunch has to maintain good relationships with tech companies, or else its access will be cut off and things will be made difficult for it in many ways. It can burn a source from time to time just for fun, but if that becomes a habit, then it just stops getting scoops and bad things start happening. For example, some hypotheticals:

- pg stops sending them new YC startup launches

- startups start actively avoiding Arrington and his
reporters and seeking out more friendly outlets, e.g.
Startup Foundry

- some smart startup guy with time on his hands does an
investigative report on TechCrunch itself, showing how
the post-AOL TechCrunch has SEO'd its headlines to the
gills with Bieber and Gaga crap

And in addition to these sorts of perceptible consequences for burning sources (i.e. scoop decline = traffic decline = revenue decline), there is another dimension to this.

Put yourself in the position of the unfortunate PR person for Source Code. Their entire investment of time and effort -- getting the Techcrunch contact, arranging a screening, getting Alexia face time with a mercurial movie start like Gyllenhaal -- went up in smoke when Alexia trashed the Source Code game stuff. [Though you could argue that the movie sort of has higher awareness now as a center of "controversy", this was not the intended outcome.]

The thing is, PR guys are scared of talking to reporters because there are often very large sums at stake that can turn on the whim of the reporter. Anyone who has raised money in the Valley knows that deals can close -- or fall through -- on the basis of a single well timed adverb in a headline.

Reporters are only dimly aware of the economic consequences of their reporting, and their ability to create -- or utterly destroy -- wealth. It's like there is a river of money flowing by them, and they can either reroute it off a cliff or towards an even larger tributary, but cannot actually take a drink from the water.

I'm of course not saying that reporters shouldn't publish negative stories or takedowns, but rather that often they aren't aware of just how bad a negative story can be if it's the top hit on Google. For those who have built something, your heart is in your throat when talking to the first few people who are going to publicly evaluate it -- are they going to trash it to such an extent that you won't even get the resources to improve it? It's at least arguable that an alternative to the tabloidy approach of Techcrunch is the more builder-friendly approach of David Pogue and Walt Mossberg, who generally don't write about things if they're going to trash them (i.e. the sign that they don't consider something that good is a lack of coverage rather than an outright flame).

Finally, sometimes reporters are aware of the economics surrounding press coverage, but in the worst way. Think about what Gizmodo wrote about the stolen iPhone:

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-gizmodo-editor-...

Gizmodo lives and dies like many small companies do. We
don't have access, or when we do, we get it taken away.

Make no mistake, access and credibility both have business value to any media company and need to be balanced. Access means good treatment of sources. Credibility means good treatment of readers. If you are only "credible", you are reporting yesterday's news. And if you only have access, you are only reporting airbrushed news. There is a balance, and Carr has to acknowledge that.