Arrington: Nick Bilton turns down significant pay raise from CNET to stay at New York Times

Uncrunched
Michael Arrington writes that Nick Bilton, lead technology writer for The New York Times, turned down an offer from CNET and Simon & Schuster, both subsidiaries of CBS, that would have given him a substantial raise and a lucrative book deal. Bilton was offered over $500,000 a year to write for CNET and do regular TV appearances, Arrington says, and was offered at least $1 million for the rights to his upcoming book. However, Arrington also writes that a CBS source called the figures “wildly inaccurate,” with the offer from CNET in the $300,000 range and the book deal just a possibility. Perhaps the most certain piece of information in the story, because it comes from Arrington himself, is that Bilton was “our number one most desired hire while I was at TechCrunch.”