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Newspaper Plagiarizes Blog, Taunts Real Author

Posted by timothy on from the shades-of-cooking-magazines-past dept.

iandennismiller writes "I've been keeping an eye on this viral marketing campaign called Petite Lap Giraffe — it's the DirecTV ads with the Russian guy and the tiny giraffe. I was pretty quick to debunk the existence of the giraffes, so a lot of people have been visiting my blog as a result. Today, I noticed a New-York area newspaper that was represented my research as their own, so I asked them to link to my blog (i.e. provide attribution). What ended up happening perfectly illustrates that newspapers just don't understand how the Internet works ..."

9 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. Great. by mikkelm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ah, Slashdot. Where pointless and petty feuds between nobodies is front page material.

    1. Re:Great. by tsm_sf · · Score: 5, Funny

      ... and your second reaction was to log in, scroll down the posts until you found one tangentially related to your mood, and post a snotty reply.

      At the least you could clue us in as to what fame threshold you're looking for in your plagiarism news. I have my account options set to .25 deciSheens, so I usually see everything.

      --
      Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
    2. Re:Great. by black3d · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed, but one is a private individual and one is an accountable business. I found it hard to read as well, but was amazed when I got to the part where the newspaper actually does pretend that it wrote the content itself rather than stealing it, and MOCKED the original author for even trying to lay claim to his own work.

      A quick domain name lookupwhich is free and public informationwill give you those details, which we acquired–you know, being a newspaper with research capabilities and all–of our own accord (although some are trying to claim this information as their own “discovery” as a way to promote their own personal website! But enough of that)

      For a "professional organisation" that is absolutely incredible. First of all they steal his content. Then they edit it to try and make it look like it wasn't stolen. And then they edit it again to actually make fun of the guy they stole it from.

      --
      "The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
  2. Re:Worst Formatting Ever by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Um, even if they'd seen his blog post and decided to write an article about the same thing, they have no obligation to credit him or defer to him.

    It's not just that the saw his post and decided to write an article about the same thing, it's that they used specific facts that he had worked to uncover in their story.

    Does that create a legal, copyright obligation? No, facts are not copyrightable. Does it create an ethical obligation, in an journalistic or academic context where citing sources of information is important? Yep.

    --
    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
    You cannot wash away blood with blood
  3. Re:Stating Facts not Plagiarism by jdpars · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You really need to read more academic (probably focus on literature) rules on plagiarism. They're pretty strict, and if you can't show your original thought, and what you wrote is the same as what someone else wrote, it's plagiarism. Journalism has a nice little habit of avoiding academic rules, though, because they actually get paid and can use that money for lawyers.

  4. Re:Only one question by MoonBuggy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's arguable either way - it's certainly not a copyright issue, but plagiarism is a much broader term - but it's gone way beyond that since the newspaper have chosen to act like rude, unprofessional asshats.

    They paraphrased this guy's findings, he contacted them and asked for attribution. Had they been reasonable people, they then had the option to say: "Of course, we've added a thank you and a link to the bottom of our article." or (in private, as a direct response to the blogger in question) "It is publicly available information; as such we don't feel that attribution is necessary or appropriate in this case, and therefore we will not be providing it.".

    I don't doubt he would've complained if they'd chosen the latter, and I may even have agreed with him, but it would've been an issue with two reasonable points of view in play. What the newspaper actually chose to do was publicly add the following to the article: "A quick domain name lookup...which is free and public information...will give you those details, which we acquired - you know, being a newspaper with research capabilities and all - of our own accord (although some are trying to claim this information as their own “discovery” as a way to promote their own personal website! But enough of that...)". All the evidence suggests that they are snide, rude, and childish - I'm far more concerned about that than about the technicalities of plagiarism.

  5. Re:Only one question by MoonBuggy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe so, I find the newspaper's mocking edit to the newspaper's article to be wholly unprofessional, not to mention having a distinct overtone of the snide, slimy breed schoolyard bully about it:

    A quick domain name lookup...which is free and public information...will give you those details, which we acquired - you know, being a newspaper with research capabilities and all - of our own accord (although some are trying to claim this information as their own “discovery” as a way to promote their own personal website! But enough of that...)

    Even if the blogger was totally fabricating these claims (seemingly unlikely, given the changes made to the article's presentation) there would be absolutely no call for any journalist to resort to petty mudslinging like this. If they feel they are in the right, wouldn't a personal reply explaining that have been far, far preferable?

  6. Re:Only one question by khallow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Copying metaphor is duplication of creative style and thought. Facts aren't covered by copyright. While it's really sleezy to read a news article and write a new News Article based on what you learned--it's not plagiarism.

    We call it plagiarism because it is plagiarism.

    The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own

  7. Not the First Time This Has Happened by laughingman4929 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I simply googled a few lines from some of her other posts, and saw that has happened before. For Example googling "Michelle and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No" from her article http://www.longislandpress.com/2011/03/13/no-impact-man-screening-panel-discussion-march-13/ Pulls up a summary from this site, which was published months earlier. http://bkfreestore.tumblr.com/post/1336085827/no-impact-man-an-outdoor-film-screening-with-colin