As a journalist, it's much easier to leave your cronyism undisclosed. After all, if people found out that there motivations to your writing beyond truth or entertainment, then they might think less of you. Maybe they'd even stop advertising on your website.

There's always been a bit of conflict of interest within TechCrunch, and for the most part it is disclosed pretty well. Arrington is an investor in Seesmic... that sort of thing. But what about the conflicts you don't hear about? I told you all earlier about the relationship between YCombinator and TechCrunch, but that could be written off by skeptics, as I presented no hard proof beyond what a source told me.

This time, though, I have proof.

What's Webaroo?

Webaroo is a tech company. I'm not really sure what they do, but they've raised a lot of money to do it. That doesn't really matter. What matters is their coverage on TechCrunch.

Mike Arrington's rave review of Webaroo was published in April, 2006. In June of that year, Webaroo was "selected" as a top entry to the TechCrunch sponsored Supernova 12 event. Supernova 12 was like the TechCrunch 50 before there was a TechCrunch 50: a showcase for the "best" startups that applied. Later, in July of this year, TechCrunch wrote about Webaroo closing a funding round.

Well That's Nothing Out of the Ordinary

This is all well and good when they conveniently ignore the glaring cronyism. Webaroo was co-founded by a gentleman named Brad Husick. Brad Husick is the husband of one Gail Clayton Husick, a former partner at the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where Arrington used to work. Did they know eachother? Probably. They co-authored a book in 1998.

Husick's name is nowhere to be found on TechCrunch. The only place you'll find it is in a comment thread on one TC story. It's not listed in Webaroo's CrunchBase page. Husick seems to have since left Webaroo, as he is not listed on their management team page, but there are several articles on the internet that reference him as co-founder and President of the company.

Interestingly, the last post about Webaroo on TechCrunch, the one where their funding round was announced, stirred up a little controversy. It was posted by now former TechCrunch writer Calley Nye. After its publication, a "source" told TechCrunch that the funding had not yet closed, and the announcement was premature. This happened in July 2008. Two questions rise out of this: who was the source, and why did Calley Nye stop working for TechCrunch shortly after? Occam's Razor, indeed.

Anyway, as for the other startups cheated out of their chance to present at Supernova 12: sorry, guys. Your co-founder should have been married to one of Mike Arrington's friends, that makes it a lot easier.

If this relationship went undisclosed for so long, what else don't we know?