On Friday, I broke a tasty story about a woman suing Google, claiming bad directions caused her to get hit by a vehicle. Today, I discover our story is everywhere, often with no attribution. Come along and watch how the mainstream media, which often claims bloggers rip it off, does a little stealing of its own.
Woman Follows Google Maps “Walking” Directions, Gets Hit, Sues was the story I posted on Friday afternoon, Pacific Time. I was tipped to the lawsuit by Gary Price of ResourceShelf. Gary hadn’t written about it himself but thought Search Engine Land would be interested in it. He came across it through the regular monitoring of search-related news that he does across a variety of resources (Gary watches many, many things — he’s a research guru extraordinaire). Gary downloaded a copy of the suit via the PACER Service and sent it to me.
No one had written about the case before I put my article up. I know. I checked before publishing. There was nothing out there. So what happened next?
I’ll Steal Your Image, But I Won’t Link To You
Let’s start with the Daily Mail’s story here. We get no attribution, but I know they found the story from us. My evidence? They’re using a screenshot I made, without my permission and without credit.
It’s a screenshot of the route from Google Maps. Sure, the Daily Mail could have generated their own route using Google Maps. But, they didn’t. “Their” image is cropped exactly the same as mine and includes an arrow I added to point to a warning on Google Maps.
Since the image was created by me, for Search Engine Land, and is a transformation of the original Google “work,” the copyright that the Daily Mail is violating belongs to Search Engine Land.
Postscript: There’s some debate in the comments on whether altering a Google screenshot as I did provides me with a copyright. Let’s say it doesn’t. That still doesn’t excuse the Daily Mail in my books for just taking the picture without any credit at all. Common courtesy still has a place.
The Financial Post does the same thing, uses my exact image — so they had to have seen my story — but they don’t bother to link over or provide attribution.
Postscript: Jameson Berkow from the Financial Post got in touch soon after I posted my story to apologize, saying there was originally a link to our article in his piece but which got lost along with other links through some technical glitch (which I can totally understand happening. I’ve lived through those myself). When he fixed the missing links, ours got overlooked accidentally but now has been restored. I’m also good with the usage of our illustration, since the article links over to me.
I’ll Link To Your Source Document, But Not You
Over at PC World, a different twist. Rather than link to my story, they linked to the source documentation — the lawsuit — that I uploaded to my personal Scribd account.
I created this account on Friday, so it’s not something you’d just stumble upon in the course of independent news gathering. Maybe PC World saw someone else linking to it and so never saw my story.
Maybe. Then again, as part of the news reporting process, I think tracking down originating sources is important. Where did this document come from? The Scribd file links over to my original story. If you wanted to backtrack the origin of this document (say, perhaps, to know if it was actually real), you’d probably head over to my story.
Either PC World did this, and didn’t think credit was necessary, or it failed to fully fact check the story.
Postscript: PC World has added a link now, thanks, and the author commented about coming across my story after finding other ones about it.
By Omission, Someone Else Becomes The Source
Regardless of how it happened, the PC World story is an example of something else, how a second party can become the originating source.
That PC World story? CBS News cited it as the source for its own story. That, again, makes you question some of the news reporting that is supposed to go on by the mainstream media. The reporting, that accounts often say, blogs themselves fail to do.
CBS simply seems to have summarized the PC World story, ending with a link to PC World plus a link to the complaint itself — the complaint I uploaded. Clearly no one tried to track down the complaint’s origin more. No apparent attempt to independently verify if the case was real. (FYI, unlike CBS, I actually did call the legal firm in the case on Friday).
That CBS story also flowed out to affiliated CBS news stations, such as here and here.
Postscript: CBS, after seeing this, added a link — thanks!
Over at the Atlantic Wire, PC World again gets cited, but not us. News.com also is cited in that Atlantic Wire round-up of commentary on the case. Despite the fact News.com prominently links to us (thanks!), that doesn’t make it into the Atlantic’s story.
Postscript: They’ve since added a link, thanks!
Time Magazine also does the same, linking to the Scribd document and the PC World story.
Postscript: They’ve since added a link, thank you.
AOL News did similarly, linking to the complaint — which was almost certainly found by reading our story — but not to our story itself. As a result, places like the New York Daily News, nineMSN and The Register cite AOL News as the source.
Postscript: AOL has since added a link, thanks!
It’s not just mainstream media that screwed up, however. Even Gizmodo, a well known tech blog, overlooked us. They linked to Fortune, which in turn linked to us. But we didn’t get a mention at Gizmodo.
Postscript: Originally I’d had written further below:
Semi-thanks to Gizmodo. They linked to Fortune, which linked to us. But hey Gizmodo, next time, show a brother-blog some love and give us a direct link.
It came up in comments that this was being too soft on Gizmodo, compared to some of the mainstream publications that I dinged for linking to an intermediary source. I agreed, explained why this happened and have changed the story to ding them properly.
Having said that, about an hour after this story when live, Gizmodo added us as a source like this:
[Search Engine Land via Fortune]
I’ve often seen them show the story trail across multiple sources this way, which I think is well done.
Want to see attribution done right? Over at Inc, they appared to have spotted the PC World story first. But further down, there’s this:
First reported by SearchEngineLand
Thanks! And thanks to others who linked, including:
The News, It Just Sprang From Our Forehead
Though I’m a traditionally trained reporter, most of my journalism has been online, where documenting how a story has been found is both easily done (through links) and often done. Bloggers generally explain how they discovered a news item.
As a result, bloggers also set themselves up for accusations that they’ve just “ripped off” some traditional news outlet. By carefully listing an originating source, and sometimes a “via” source, they expose how news flows.
In contrast, a traditional media outlet typically does not document how a story came to life. It’s all a mystery. News just seems to emerge magically out of thin air in the middle of a newsroom. Or, it’s down to all those hard-working reporters out there defending democracy despite newspapers earning less these days because of all those rip-off bloggers.
For example, the Salt Lake Tribune published the Google Maps story yesterday, three days after our story went up. How did the paper discover the news?
In a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court for Utah…
Well, lawsuits are public. Newspapers regularly check on them, in their areas. In fact, that’s exactly what Tribune reporter Chris Smart told me, when I called him today to ask about the origin of his story. Smart said the Tribune has a federal courts reporter who checks for filings each day.
I used to work for daily newspapers. I know courts reporters do this. But our story went up late on Friday afternoon Pacific time. How come the Tribune didn’t have its own story then? A full day had passed from when the case was filed to when it could have been written up. But it wasn’t.
Did the reporter come in on Saturday, Sunday or Monday — over a holiday weekend — and check the records?
There was some discussion between Chris and someone else in the newsroom, then I was handed over to the federal courts reporter herself. She eventually said that someone in the newsroom heard a rumor about this case, and she was called in to help locate it on Monday using the PACER system.
Now let’s imagine how the Tribune’s story would have looked, if that fact had been reported:
After hearing a rumor about a case involving Google Maps, which someone saw on TV or read on a blog or we don’t really know where, we checked court records ourselves to find the case which says….
Whatever rumor the Tribune heard, which finally got them to cover a story three days late in their own backyard, that rumor started with our story. Despite this, the Tribune became the originating source as cited by places such as About.com, the San Francisco Business Times and elsewhere.
Postscript: The SF Business Times, after seeing this, kindly added a link!
Beyond the Tribune, there are plenty of other places where the story was apparently just discovered out of the blue, including:
I especially like how this happens over at The Sun. The story there, by “Staff Reporter,” gives no clue about how a British tabloid owned by News Corporation came across a story that happened over 5,000 miles away. Wire report? Saw it on a blog? Is there a Sun reporter based in Park City, Utah?
We’ll Cite You, But Not Link To You
Mashable reported on our story, and like a reputable blog, they linked to us. But Mashable’s content appears to be syndicated into places like the Sydney Morning Herald — and our link got dropped in that.
That’s bad for us, as we lose traffic. It’s also bad for Sydney Morning Herald readers, who may want to read our original story.
Postscript: They’ve since added a link, thank you.
Related to this, both Fox News Memphis and Fox News LA cite Mashable for their story, which makes me think all Fox News affiliates are sharing this piece. Since Mashable is credited, was it too hard to cite Search Engine Land as the original source?
Postscript: The story has since added a link, thanks!
The Salt Lake Tribune also gets cited, which underscores a point I made earlier. Instead of original reporting going on, plenty of mainstream publications are happy to simply “echo chamber” a story that originated on a blog in the same way that blogs are often accused of doing to mainstream publications.
And Now, It’s From The AP
The Associated Press has filed on the story. Here’s the entire thing so far (the story will no doubt grow as they do more reporting). I’m going to reprint the entire thing. I feel this is allowed by fair use, as it’s required to show the entire story in order to fully comment about it:
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A woman who says she relied on Google for walking directions in Utah that got her hit on a major roadway has filed a lawsuit against the Internet company claiming it supplied unsafe directions.
Lauren Rosenberg filed the $100,000 lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Utah. It also names a motorist she says hit her.
A Google spokeswoman also did not return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Rosenberg says she used her BlackBerry to download walking directions from Google Maps between two Park City addresses.
The Los Angeles County resident claims the directions led her to walk through Park City on a road without sidewalks that she says isn’t safe for pedestrians.
Rosenberg couldn’t be reached Tuesday. Her attorneys did not return messages.
As with the Tribune, where’s the information about how the AP discovered this story? Did the reporter come across someone else writing about it? If so, how about a credit? And if so, did they actually pull the case itself from PACER? Or did they download the document I put out there, like many others seem to have done?
Speaking of the Tribune, that paper is owned by MediaNewsGroup, which is led by Dean Singleton, who is also chairman of the Associated Press. Singleton and the AP have been vocal that blogs often rip them off for news content.
My Do Newspapers Owe Google “Fair Share” Fees For Researching Stories? story has another example of a story that emerged from blogs and into the AP wire without attribution.
I think that if the AP or traditional publications like the Salt Lake Tribune documented exactly how they “found” news in the way blogs do, there’d be a fair reassessment of just how much flows back and forth. It’s not all a one way street, from traditional news outlets to blogs.
Can’t We All Get Along?
That brings me back to another piece I wrote last year, Blogs & Mainstream Media: We Can & Do Get Along. I’d like to see a lot less finger-pointing and much more acknowledgment that the origin of news is a messy business.
So why am I pointing fingers in this case? To help keep things even. I think it’s very well known how traditional sources get cited by alternative ones. But while the opposite is true, that’s a story that’s rarely illustrated.
I’ll also add that I know mistakes and misunderstandings can happen with attribution. I try to get it right, but I know I’m not perfect. I also know there are times we’ve reported on a story, credited someone else but nonetheless ended up as a originating source. News is messy. But we should all try to do better attribution.
Postscript: Aside from the fairness of attribution, linking to sources brings those sources support with traffic. Our story at Search Engine Land has had 30,000 page views just from being mentioned in the Toronto Star’s write-up. If other places like the Daily Mail or the Sun had linked, we’d have even more visitors, which is important to a relatively small publication. My Thanks For The Link, Mainstream Media — Now Let’s Have More! post from 2007 has more thoughts on wanting to see more mainstream linking.
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lols at Halpert for thinking that SELand looks like a SPAM blog. For what it’s worth Danny, I have really enjoyed reading your SPAM blog’s ORIGINAL content for quite some time. I hope you keep producing more SPAM.
Alas, the amazing bit of ire that this post has caused is amusing.
I’m really glad you are complaining about copyright violations. Obama team was looking for suggestions on how to make the copyright law stronger. I told them for one, the Justice department could forget the Google Settlement and hold them liable, just as they would me if I copied someone else’s book, for profit (however that latter comes about.)
As a freelance writer since the 50s, I’ve watched as the law becomes so convoluted that no one understands it and figures they’ll be able to do whatever they want and fight it in court later if someone finally finds out and sues. Now it took me many months to get HighBeam to take down an article I wrote for my profession. They used is as a freebie in a paid for collection of articles; when asked to take it down, they then offered it as a freebie if one signed up for the paid program. It was only after I threatened a lawsuit to both my professional organization and HighBeam that the thing disappeared from their site. I don’t know how much money they made off me, but they never paid me…yet.
Matthew, if I were that concerned about this issue, I could write a post like this every week. For me, this was a pretty clear cut example of what I and others who blog encounter on a routine basis. It was worth illustrating. Perhaps it will change some attitudes. But I’m not losing sleep over it.
As for “following” this post so heavily, people are leaving comments, which is an expression of their interest. Why on earth wouldn’t I try to answer their questions or further clarify my thinking? That’s the point of accepting comments.
Danny, it looks like Atlantic Wire has since added a “hat tip” also. Slowly but surely you’re being given the credit you deserve.
A sad commentary on journalism today. I started to write that these organizations must have a separate set of rules for online reporting, but I’m not so sure they haven’t sunk this far in print as well. We write extensively about finding primary sources and the “real” source of a story, but even our seminal blog post on this fairly well presumed that “trustworthy” news organizations would not behave in this manner. http://blog.findingdulcinea.com/2010/02/finding-the-real-source-of-your-source.html
I understand your frustration, and correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you neglect to state your source in your original article? I see where you mentioned him in this one, but I didn’t see where you listed your source in the original article. No one should rip anyone off and every writer should always give credit to links and pictures they use. But unless I’m missing something, you are complaining about something you also did.
Mel, my source was mentioned in the second paragraph of my original article, complete with a link to his ResourceShelf site — he didn’t actually have an article about the case, but that, I figured people could at least learn more about him and his site.
I am still keeping a close eye on this story and I think it is *really* encouraging how many replies you have received from people who HAVE now gone back and linked to you. Shame you had to make this big fuss to get it done but its wicked that it worked out so well. I bet this whole ordeal worked out more in your favor than if they had just linked to you in the first place eh? Well done, very well done.
Interestingly enough in your entry about the case, you link to a post about the Google Maps ‘swim Easter Egg‘ but not to its source on Blogoscoped?
You might want to correct that!
Danny 2 Danny: atomic typo in story above:
ATOMIC TYPO ALERT: Danny, there is a small typo still on your site re the above story: Spellcheck did not catch it because you wrote ”WHEN” when you meant to type ”WENT”, and it still reads: “Having said that, about an hour after this story ”WHEN” live, Gizmodo…….”
Veteran copy editors call that an ”atomic typo”, like unclear for nuclear, or sedan for Sudan or Gov. Christ for Gov. Crist…….so FIX when time allows. — Danny proofreader in Taiwan, far from the madding and maddening crowds….
Danny 2 Danny, 2: Danny, after reading this article last night in Taiwan i came up the term “You’ve been DannySullivan’d” to mean what happens when a writer has his or her “article” factchecked and vetted and papertrailed by someone like you following your MO above to ascertain the exact attributions and credit lines. “You’ve been Romesko’d” has already made it into our common vocabulary, when a person’s article or blog gets linked at Jim Romenesko’s site, and now “You’ve been DannySullivan’d” is poised to catch on to, thanks to you! Good post, good gumshoe detective work.
I don’t know whether my blog is considered Mainstream Media or not, but just letting you know this isn’t the first time Dailymail.co.uk has done this sort of thing.
An entry about Saturn I made on April 20th, 2009:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/cassinis_continued_mission.html
Daily Mail’s article on April 21st, 2009:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1172205/Saturn-close-Sensational-cosmic-images-bring-ringed-planet-life.html
The images are public domain, so there’s no theft there – but the selection of photos (gathered from thousands of raw Cassini images), the ordering of the images, much of the caption editing and cropping of the images all came directly from my blog entry – and not so much as a hat tip from Daily Mail.
Alan, that is astonishing. Did you or Boston.com complain to Daily Mail? What they did is indefensible, and, in my strong opinion, a clear violation of U.S. copyright laws, because of the elements you noted.
Franky, thanks, I changed that! Of course, three years after a story breaks, I’m personally much less worried about whether the originating source is linked to or not. But Google Earth did point over to Google Blogoscoped, so I should have spotted that.
Mark, I sent an email to them on Tuesday. I just sent another one. We’ll see if the respond.
Danny, great post, glad you brought this out.
Beyond the failure to cite which is unforgiveable, as a matter of usability, I’ve noticed more and more mainstream media websites are NOT linking to anything.
Even a story about a website in the WSJ often doesn’t link to the site. It’s insane, and apparently, some journalists believe it’s best for the audience:
“Links are wonderful conveniences, as we all know (from clicking on them compulsively day in and day out). But they’re also distractions.”
“The link is, in a way, a technologically advanced form of a footnote. It’s also, distraction-wise, a more violent form of a footnote.”
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/05/experiments_in.php
Danny, it will never stop. Things become more interesting/annoying when someone scores an exclusive interview with a celebrity and then finds MSM using quotes (often more than 50%) and publishing everything under copyright. In the UK it’s a major game and just like in Germany journalists have no obligation to disclose sources (but bloggers should).
Where do you draw the line though? I only hope Murdoch and Co. will soon hide behind their paywall: http://www.blogherald.com/2009/09/14/uk-media-still-fails-to-attribute-sources/
Time has updated their version of the article to include a link to SEL from the second paragraph. I don’t know when the change was made, since the cached copy from 6:08 GMT today has the link as well. It’s clearly something they added on, though: the current version still ends with an “update” pointing out that the walking directions are in beta, “as PC World points out.” We already know that PC World points it out because they saw that you point it out.
Looks like the Wire has updated their attribution as well.
Dear Danny:
We’ve all been there. When I pitched a story a long time ago to the L.A. Times, a week later the story came out with another byline and only a slightly different title.
Recently, a story Wireless and Mobile News broke, was talked about on a forum. Some forum member received thousands of attributions, we received nothing.
Another time, I spent a lot of time in Photoshop, putting this message on a T-Mobile Cameo wireless photo frame “Tasteless Message Goes Here.” Several competitors ran similar stories with our “Tasteless Message.”
We’ve also had websites steal hundreds of articles verbatim with photos, the only thing they changed were the bylines.
One time, I searched down the original Korean news release for a cell phone maker, major news sources and bloggers had taken the news from a translation that was blatantly wrong. Somehow from Korean to Russian to English it lost something in the translation, the truth.
Thanks for showing the world what we blojournalists deal with every day.
I thought it was interesting seeing how many people changed their stories once they realised they were getting some bad press, and then linked back to you. They could have done it the first time and avoided that, but there you go!
Well done Danny, I love this. Make them eat a little humble pie and maybe they will stop the finger pointing so much and realise that the way forward is the affiliate and work together with news like this.
Its a similar story with the music industry, these old, entrenched, dinosaur industries are not adapting to the global changes. They dont know what to do so they try and fight it to protect the huge profits they rake in. What they dont realise is they cant win, they will just have to bite the bullet, take a drop in pay possibly and work with new technologies and trends. They can still make a lot of money and survive well! Its all about greed man…the American way!
The Daily Mail and the Sun have never let the truth stand in the way of a good story, specially if they can get Polish imigrant lesbian single mothers out to break Britain into the story as well; therefore doesn’t surprise me at all that they avoid including any attribution as to the source of their stories.
While I agree with most of this article, there is one case where you shouldn’t expect a link. If a news organization hears a rumour of a story, and then proceeds to research it, finding the original source documents first, and then proceeds to write their own original content covering the story, you shouldn’t expect a link. I don’t think being first grants anyone some kind of right to be linked or referenced in every article from then on. You credit your sources, not the person who breaks the story. When your source has a source, you should be digging backwards anyway. It’s not very good journalism if you don’t.
It was through a twitter follower that I first heard about what has happened to you ( @ReStream) The reason that they had let me know about this was as a result of an amp that I did on amplify.com. The story(amp) I did was..you guessed it “If Google told you to jump off a cliff would you?” I feel very bad about this as I do not now or ever believe in stealing anything.
I offer my own apologies for unwittingly doing something that makes me feel kind of ill as I also believe in ethics and credibility.
I have posted a comment on that story so that others can read and come here to hear what you have to say.
I debated whether to leave it up or delete it. I decided that by leaving it up that your story would get more attention, but with the proper credit due.
I hope this is ok with you, please let me know if it isnt and I will delete the amp if you ask.
The amp in question is http://blogneta.amplify.com/2010/05/31/if-google-told-you-to-jump-off-a-cliff-would-you/
It is terrible when others create a problem for so many people..it is just plain disgusting!
Thanks for your time
Best regards,
Diane Bjorling
the copyright of the google map screenshot will, i guess, remain with google, however that hardly qualifies as a excuse for the media site to copy it from your site. Am sure search engine land has proof, from the logs and stats, that the image was copied from the dailymail office. I don’t know the legal aspect of it, but how can someone download something, whatever it may be, from a site if the site owner is not ok with it.
am really impressed with the attitude of the financial post, if a mistake has been done, just accept and apologize and it will be, in most cases, fine
same goes to PC world and cbs and others.
this also makes me think that how many more stories on their sites are credit less… since not everyone goes through all this to get the credit links placed.
Diane, adding the comment to your Amp was great, thanks!
Danny, sorry I didn’t link directly to you initially. I assumed, wrongly, that the newspaper was the originating source. I’ve edited my blog post to link to you and credit you with breaking the story.
Thanks, Wendy!
Without going in to details… I have watched well known members of the media intentionally sidestep giving credit. I have had my own work used when the only compensation was credit only to have them apologize after the fact but STILL not give credit. They are what they are and those who steal copy, ideas, images, etc. know who they are too. Good for you getting a little credit where credit was due.
The proliferation of copyright violation in the real estate industry is truly sad.
I own about 100 copyrights to unique graphic arts maps which are cut and pasted and used on their web sites by real estate competitors. It’s a constant battle to keep my content off their web sites and blogs.
I’ve successfully collected damages from about 25 of them over the past 5 years and continue to monitor the use of my images. I don’t bother with text content because of time constraints, but I do protect my unique map images. Of course, there is no attribution nor link credits.
Lenn Harley
I think you’re a whiner. You steal from Google Maps and put an arrow on the image and then think you’ve got a copyright on it???? What a moron.
It’s called a transformative work, and yes, it’s protected by copyright.
Barnegat Blummis: No, the moron would be the guy who thinks Danny was saying that he had any copyright on an image that he simply used to prove they had taken his story without attribution. Oh, that’s you, surprise!!
Danny, I hadn’t even thought about that, good point.
Think about it. If the papers linked back every story they pick up, there would be nothing but links and credits in the paper and on their site.
The fact is you put the story, and the verification details, into the public domain so no one has to credit anyone. It was out there.
Forget any thoughts of courtesy – in the real world, it is not done if it is not necessary. They ask us all to pay our taxes in instalments but few do – because it is not necessary. Human nature; pure and simple.
However, if you had sent it directly to the news desks a day or two before posting it online, you would have got your requested credits – and a few cheques too. Life is very simple – if you just plan it.
I’m going to disagree with Iain from a philosophical perspective.
1) Syndicated content is always stated as such (citing source)
2) Newspapers need to differentiate themselves by elevating themselves above hearsay. If better quality original content is found on a blog than a newspaper, the distinction between blogger and journalist becomes even more murky. Pretty soon, anyone with a blog will be printing their own press passes.
3) Verbatim from the Society of Professional Journalists: a. “Identify sources whenever feasible” which could easily have been done. b) “Never plagiarize”
In the real world, Iain may be right but if that is the case, why buy newspapers at all?
Years ago when a newscaster was interviewed, you would have been referred to as an “unnamed source”, today you are referred to as “the geek in living in his mother’s basement”. The mainstream media made their bread and butter for decades (and still does) off people who don’t have a loud enough public voice. I have also noticed the radio and television people who complain the most about bloggers are over the age of 40. Being north of 40 myself, I have to shake my head when I hear this kind of nonsense. All they are doing is trying to protect their spot so to speak.
I quoted someones quote about quoting in a quotidian way and failed to attribute my quota, quoth I. Yea, verily, ’tis metacognition gone starkers, n’est-ce pas?
I am going through the same thing. I broke a story and got some exclusive image of a tweet that was sent in the story and later deleted and thank God I was smart enough to brand my logo on it. The more established entertainment blogs all grabbed the image and none of them gave me credit! some linked to the image itself and others just wrote my website name and others just slapped it on with no credit at all! I think it is despicable seeing as I took the time to research the story, verified the information and got the evidence to back it up. The more established blogs are now being credited for the story!!!
I am so mad and frustrated cos this is not the first time but this is the largest story (FYI it’s a story on David Lachappelle confronting Rihanna on Twitter over stealing his imagery for her video)
I am going to tweet this story so these unscrupulous fools hopefully get some shame in them and do the right thing! (excuse any spelling errors cos I’m livid as I type this)
An fascinating discussion is price comment. I feel that you need to write more on this matter, it won’t be a taboo subject but generally persons are not enough to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers
Suzi Parker at PoliticsDaily just went through this same exact meshugan thing. google her name and the Sarah Palin trademark story. she scooped it, but it got picked up by the world, mostly without credit, and often with wrong incorrect credit. mostly fixed now, but she had to go through the loops just as Danny did……
here is the whole megillah:
Breaking the Sarah Palin Trademark Story: A Lesson in Journalism Ethics
Suzi Parker
One night at 2 a.m. I was reading a story by Matt Lewis about Herman
Cain, a possible 2012 presidential candidate from Georgia. Pursuing
the Cain story further, I discovered that he had trademarked the
phrase “The Hermanator Experience.”
Trademark? Hmm. I wondered if Sarah Palin had trademarked something
with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It seemed like something
she would do. A quick search and voila! Indeed, her longtime family
attorney, Thomas Van Flein, had filed two applications with the office
for the names Sarah Palin and Bristol Palin.
But with that scoop about Palin’s branding, a question about
journalism ethics and civility in the 21st century arose. In the
Internet age, does the old journalism rule of giving credit to a
breaking story’s original source still apply?
In this zip-zip era of blogs, it’s easy to lose track of which outlet
breaks a story first, especially as it becomes viral through social
media. The Palin story was picked up by many websites, including
Politico, The Atlantic Wire, Vanity Fair, Talking Points Memo and
Mediaite. Those sites linked to the original story and gave Politics
Daily credit.
Then something odd happened. Vanity Fair began getting credit for the
story. It was as if reporters weren’t even reading the Vanity Fair
piece — and noting its reference to the original source — but just
copying and pasting the link into their stories. To confront or not to
confront? That was the question.
In journalism, professional courtesy has been a long-standing
tradition, and it still pays for reporters to check the accuracy of
sources, whether they’re writing for a newspaper or a blog. In other
words, search for the original source. Not to so do isn’t exactly
unethical, but it is lazy and sloppy at best.
In 2008, Jeff Jarvis wrote on his “Buzz Machine” blog: “I believe it
is vital that we as an industry find ways to point to and give credit
to original reporting. That is how original journalism will be
supported, in the end: by monetizing the audience that comes to it,
whether through advertising or contributions.”
He also created a golden rule: “Link unto others’ good stuff as you
would have them link unto your good stuff.”
Thankfully, ethics still exist among some reporters. When I e-mailed a
Salon reporter, he immediately apologized and said he would link to
Politics Daily. He did so. The same thing happened when I e-mailed a
reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. When a reporter with the
New York Daily News gave another AOL entity credit instead of Politics
Daily, I sent her a nice note explaining that the two were separate
sites. She apologized and changed it within five minutes.
But not everyone was so eager to please.
The Arkansas Times blog didn’t cite Politics Daily — or any site, for
that matter — in the body of the post. The report did have a link to
Talking Points Memo. When I questioned the editor, Max Brantley, he
replied, “I linked to where I read it.”
Easy enough mistake, but I pressed for attribution, explaining that
Politics Daily broke the story. He answered, “I see that now, as will
anyone who opens the link. I rarely dig into the chain of sources on
blog links, particularly when I use so little of the content.”
He finally gave Politics Daily credit for the story but refused to
link to the original source.
Journalism professors say this is a no-no.
“I think a media outlet is absolutely duty bound to link to stuff that
has already been reported elsewhere,” says Mike Lyons, a former
reporter for the Associated Press and now an assistant professor of
journalism at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. “We would
have expected them to do that in the ‘old media world,’ by giving
credit where credit was due and attributing the original report. Why
would that change?”
Reuters did not do so. Its reporter wrote a lengthy story but never
credited Politics Daily as the first outlet to report the Palin
trademark applications. The Reuters story spread quickly and landed in
many print publications across the world. Reuters did add new
information to the story, reporting that Palin now has a new attorney
handling the trademark issue. (Van Flein now works for U.S. Rep. Paul
Gosar, a Republican from Arizona with strong tea party ties.) The
Reuters reporter didn’t reply to my e-mail.
“Even contemporary journalism ethics would require that an outlet
credit another organization for a story if it is first reported
there,” says Richard J. Goedkoop, professor of communication at
LaSalle University. “To do otherwise might be considered plagiarism,
or at the least, unprofessional.”
And now to the Associated Press. The AP always requires a citation
from other publications that quote a story by the wire service. The
cited reference cannot be more than a paragraph or so of AP’s original
story and the wire service is a stickler for demanding credit.
But when AP reported the trademark story, no credit was given. I
e-mailed the Alaska bureau chief and explained the situation. He
agreed that Politics Daily should have been cited and said he would
correct it in an updated version of the story.
He made the change, but it was the last sentence in the story. Later,
a small victory did arrive from Traci Carl, the AP’s West Editor,
wrote in an e-mail, “You are right. The Associated Press should have
give you credit for breaking the Palin trademark story, and we should
have put it higher in the story. We will do so in the future.”
The Internet is a big, big place and I’m beginning to feel a bit like
Sisyphus. Click click click. I love the Internet, but every now and
then I miss the thud of a rolled-up newspaper landing on my doorstep.
It was firm and final and certainly unsearchable. What we called
“tomorrow’s kitty litter box liner” was a curse, but maybe it was a
blessing, too.
I just read it. That’s a whole lot of work when you are running a blog by yourself. I did email the popular blogs that did this and never got a response from either.
I’m just glad I had the good sense to plaster my logo all over the image but it irks me that they get to have all the traffic and earnings. For the sake of my health I’ve decided to let it go.
Hopefully people will want to go to the source
i been follow you for years reading your articles and search engine news , Danny Sullivan you are Widely considered a leading “search engine guru, for me is not about exclusive right to the information it’s all about credit you for writing it’s not easy to do so, not when it’s come to social media, and old media that it’s all about the new social media, writing takes time and understanding of facts and having the ability to predict future changes in technology search, news, and change made by The Mainstream media, if you can see that like you do then you get the credit keep up with the excellent writing and pinpoint accuracy.
Emil Cohen
Pretty fascinating topic, thank you for putting up.
you don’t expect big websites / companies to act like that, shame.
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