Over the past year, Pogue has reviewed Yahoo's products on many different occasions. Presumably, his hiring-managers read all of them.
It is quite likely that Pogue's reviews (e.g. great review of Flickr changes) were honest reviews and that he wasn't trying to curry favor with prospective future employers.
However, I hope that this job offer leads to more thoughts on conflicts of interest and perhaps requirements (from NYT etc) regarding journalists reviewing companies from whom they might accept job offers
I don't know how there's any real way to get around this, because if you don't let a journalist write about any company where they might receive a job offer, you'll end up with a significant gap in reporting. I think that's better than the current scenario.
It is quite likely that Pogue's reviews (e.g. great review of Flickr changes) were honest reviews and that he wasn't trying to curry favor with prospective future employers.
However, I hope that this job offer leads to more thoughts on conflicts of interest and perhaps requirements (from NYT etc) regarding journalists reviewing companies from whom they might accept job offers