That "other" website being ClassicsToday?
Have you experienced a Hurwitz-burn that left you scarred? [As most people, though not all, he becomes all the more pleasant on proximity. And I must say that I've found him incredibly open in my dealing with me... not only for taking me on, after Forbes ditched the column, but also for re-assessing recordings differently than he has judged them in the past (i.e. Bernstein's Beethoven).]
I wouldn’t say burned or scarred. I just eventually realized that I dislike his writing enough that I avoid his website altogether. One example occurred as I was reading an essay on vibrato. At first I didn’t know who wrote it. The pdf did not state the author at the top. I read a few pages littered with straw men, ad hominem attacks, and hand-waving. By the time I got to the author’s admission that he didn’t know the meanings of terminology used in historical violin treatises, it was clear that behind the facade of a substantive analysis, the essay was really just a crude rationalization of the author’s personal preferences and an attack on those with different preferences. Then I asked myself, “who wrote this junk, David Hurwitz?” I scrolled to the bottom, and guess who the author was? Blindly identifying an author by his writing’s junky viciousness is a surprisingly powerful realization.
I similarly try to avoid Lebrecht’s website, though less strictly.
I am not surprised that Hurwitz is more charming in person. For all I know, I would enjoy a conversation with him. But I avoid his website.