• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, September 2, 2011

Late last year, upon AOL's agreement to buy TechCrunch, founder and voice Michael Arrington said he planned to stay with the tech blog for years, if not "all my life." Less than a year on, Arrington appears to be hanging up his editor hat to raise a venture capital fund "Crunchfund," which will be backed in part by AOL.

To be clear, Arrington is "not employed by AOL" anymore, AOL spokesman Mario Ruiz told Business Insider on Friday. "It appears that that this relationship [with AOL's venture arm, ‘AOL Ventures'] is not an employment relationship, but a business relationship."

On Thursday, however, The New York Times reported that Arrington would still be employed by TechCrunch, and would report to Arianna Huffington, AOL's president and editor-in-chief.

"Arrington is no longer working for AOL's Huffington Post Media Group, but he remains employed by AOL," All Things Digital insists on Friday, citing comments from Maureen Sullivan, head of AOL corporate communications.

"Mike will run the [new] fund and will continue to write for TechCrunch, but will have no editorial oversight," AOL's Mario Ruiz told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

Under the headline, "Arrington Leaves TechCrunch, AOL Loses Its Top Journalist," Wired.com writes: "The bigger story here is the fact that AOL has lost its highest-profile journalist," adding that Arrington's "departure from the editorial side of things only serves to underscore how talent-unfriendly AOL really is."

Notes Observer.com: "The fact that Mr. Arrington will continue to blog, as many VCs do, seems less troubling at the moment than the fact that AOL, which has been on a hiring binge for journalists even before its merger with the Huffington Post, is now in bed with limited partners who back start-ups featured in both TechCrunch and its conferences."

Still, on Google+, respected media analyst Jeff Jarvis points out that The New York Times Company "also invests in start-ups (including one where I am a partner, Daylife) and the NYTimes covers start-ups." What's more, NYTimes lab also created a start-up with Betaworks (News.me). It, too, is in the business of start-ups."

Arrington, who has repeatedly said over the years that he is not a journalist, tells The Times: "his investments would produce less of a conflict of interest than the other conflicts that all journalists have as human beings, because their views are shaped by friendships, romances and personal opinions."