According to insiders I've talked with, the whole business model of TechCrunch is to hype up every company who gives them exclusives, and to completely trash everyone who doesn't. This is because they know exclusives get the most pageviews, so their entire business model is built around extorting companies to get them.

If we want to teach TechCrunch a lesson the best way to do so isn't to ban them or boycott their advertisers; that's unrealistic. Better just to ban any news published by TC until it's also been covered by another source, so that way they no longer have the power to blackmail the entire industry.