Having been someone who has lost his temper before on an internet show I winced when I saw the normally calm and friendly Leo Laporte get angry and shut down the Gillmor Gang show over a Palm Pre review copy misunderstanding with Mike Arrington. I think the point Arrington tried to make was a very good one and it’s too bad that the usually passive Laporte took it as a personal insult and shut the show down. I think if given a similar situation 99 more times, Laporte would not have reacted the same way. But that’s not to say Arrington or Laporte did anything wrong.

Sometimes you just have bad days. That’s what I came away from this thinking.

I wish the internet mob would be able to look at these types of events and chalk them up as humans being human rather than trying to stir something up and going crazy as some are (apparently Arrington received death threats in the comment area of his apology post). We are all far from perfect and I think if each one of us looked inside ourselves when incidents like these come up we’d be able to say: yup, I remember reacting poorly to something and wish I could have that moment back. I sure do.

If you want to watch the live-aired version of what went wrong between Leo and Mike then click here to watch on YouTube, otherwise I’m embedding the funny keyboard cat version below.

I didn’t know what the keyboard cat was about and am normally not that fond of the LOLcatz animal humor but this video mashup cracked me up. Now go watch more keyboard cat at playhimoffkeyboardcat.com

Cooler heads prevail

Hopefully as the dust settles – and it seems by now Mike has already quickly apologized and Leo has accepted (in the comments area of same post) – the Gillmor Gang show should return and a serious discussion of the ethics of any company who might or might not be sending out gadget review units targeted primarily to those who will give a more positive review will be discussed and debated.

All keyboard cat kidding aside, that is a serious worthwhile discussion. What caused this spat is the primary reasons I stopped doing those paid ReviewMe reviews. The money was good and I didn’t feel obligated to give the products/services any particular positive slant. And I always started each review with disclosure for readers but at the end of the day something didn’t feel quite right. It left me feeling kind of dirty, so I stopped doing it. I wonder how many other tech pub writers have done the same?

Did this post make you go hmm?

Maybe Related Posts (plugin generated)

• Protecting the TechCrunch secret sauce
• Mike Tyson arrested for DUI and cocaine possession
• Leo Laporte buys Tablet PC
• Laporte and Dvorak discuss dual boot Apple / Windows future
• Feedster 2.0 beta design looks too much like FrontPage theme
• Call For Help show on TechTV: weekdays 3pm EST channel 354