Oh, fun: a simmering feud between two of the titans of tech journalism. Techcrunch's oh-so-touchy Michael Arrington is peeved with Kara Swisher, the plugged-in Wall Street Journal reporter who now helms the newspaper's All Things Digital property. Her crime? Spiky Swisher explained to the Techcrunch founder, a newbie to journalism, how to reject pitches from lame startups, something Arrington has been finding difficult. Let's practice: "Nope. Sorry. Uh-uh. Zip. Zero. Nada." Condescending, certainly, as Arrington complained. But Swisher's real offense: she's refused to let the Techcrunch founder jump the line for All Things Digital's sold-out conference.

Arrington's been complaining to tech industry execs such as Jim Lanzone of Ask that he's been shut out of the event, which takes place in Carlsbad next week. All Things Digital, which began as a Wall Street Journal conference in 2003 and recently launched a tech news web site, is increasingly competitive with Techcrunch, which started as a publishing venture and is about, itself, to branch out into conferences.

Another possible reason for the antagonism: rivalry between old and new media. Swisher, though a born blogger, was a longtime newspaper reporter; she doesn't have much time for the sycophancy and flakiness of most tech news blogs; Arrington has played to the blog gallery by bashing the "ethical" transgressions of traditional media.

But people close to All Things D say the reason for Arrington's exclusion is more prosaic. He never bothered to apply for a pass. Presumably, because, if you're Michael Arrington, they should bring round the invitation, in person, with flowers and wine. The Techcrunch publisher, in his recent public wail about the bubble, described the lengths to which supplicants will go for his approval. Awful. But, when, like Swisher, they don't bow down, he hates that too.