The mini-scandal over CBS’s meddling in its subsidiary CNET, which it ordered not to give an award to a product whose maker CBS was suing, has a poetically just coda: Senior writer Greg Sandoval, who quit the tech site in protest after The Verge reported that the order to disqualify The Hopper DVR player came directly from CBS CEO Leslie Moonves after it had already been voted “best in show,” has now taken a job with upstart tech site The Verge. Sandoval wrote on his blog that one of the things that attracted him to The Verge was that it had “committed itself to editorial independence” well before he got there, and that, “I possess a written guarantee from management that nobody from the business side of the company will ever have any authority over my stories.” The Consumer Electronics Association last week dropped CNET as its CES partner following the scandal and it’s looking for a new one, so if The Verge plans to continue gaining from CNET’s loss, angling for that spot would be a logical next step.
