One thing that hasn’t changed in the newspaper business is that we get annoyed when broadcast media, as they frequently do, rip off our stories without credit.
My friend Daniel P. Finney of the Des Moines Register, night cops reporter and author of one of the best beat-reporting Twitter feeds, DM_in_the_PM, expressed this annoyance Saturday, noting in a tweet that KCCI had ripped off a Register story.
Newspaper ethics tend to do better about direct ripping off the competition. Plagiarism is a career capital offense, so if we can’t advance a story or find the same sources to duplicate it, we reluctantly attribute.
We show the same sort of stupid disregard for other media outlets in other ways, though. The same day that Finney was bemoaning KCCI’s ripoff of the Register, one of his Register colleagues, Erin Jordan, wrote a news story about museums in Eastern Iowa reopening. Here’s the last paragraph: “The Cedar Rapids Art Museum reopened Aug. 30 and has been hosting an exhibit of flood photographs along with an exhibit by Harry Potter illustrator Mary GrandPré. ‘We were thrilled to get people back into the building,’ Pitts said.”
Now, if the photographs had been shot by the staff of the Register or by a local artist, the story would have mentioned the artist(s) responsible. After all, “who” is the first question of the 5 W’s that are the fundamentals of journalism (notice that the Harry Potter illustrator did not go unnamed). But the photographs were by the staff of another newspaper, The Gazette. So the artists and their organization go unnamed. I’m not expecting the Register to name all the artists, but a reference to their organization was in order here. I will name all the artists: Todd Dorman, Steve Gravelle, Angie Holmes, Cliff Jette, Liz Martin, Brian Ray, Courtney Sargent, Jim Slosiarek, Jonathan Woods (operating from memory here; apologies if I left someone out).
I should add that Register photographers have personally expressed to me their admiration for our photo staff’s work in covering the flood. It’s kind of an industrywide bias against mentioning the competition, even though the Register hasn’t seriously competed in Eastern Iowa for years.
It’s a great exhibit. If you haven’t already seen it, you should go before it closes Feb. 22. And give the artists credit.
Another interesting piece of timing: My weekend column (and Friday’s blog post) credits the Register’s Parkersburg tornado map with providing a model that we used in development of iowafloodstories.com, the Gazette’s interactive map telling the story of the Cedar Rapids 2008 flood. I am trying to practice what I preach.
I should point out here that this isn’t a particular issue between the Register and me or the Register and the Gazette. I spent 10 happy years with the Register in two hitches and still have lots of friends there. This is a quirk throughout much of journalism. I don’t doubt that sometimes my own staff has been guilty of it. But it’s silly. We all should stop. Let’s remember the fundamentals of journalism: What, When, Where, Why, How and, oh yeah, Who.
The Gazette for years seemed unable to spell out what RAGBRAI stands for. Is that still the case?
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Erin Jordan used to work with us at The Gazette!
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I’m pretty sure we credited the Register for RAGBRAI this year, but I do recall hearing that The Gazette has failed in the past to give credit to the Register for that Iowa event. Frankly, every paper I have worked at has been guilty of this silliness at one time or another. That doesn’t make it right.
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Anyone who has spent even a year or two here knows what the RAGBRAI acronym means and I would find it completely unnecessary to have it spelled out each time (that’s the beauty of commonly known acronyms). For those who remember the first few, yes, it confused people to no end and probably needed to be spelled out in order for it to sink into the fabric of Iowa society. Almost 4 decades later though?
Speaking of credit…John Campbell had a direct link to the Register-established RAGBRAI site from his blog. I’d say that’s giving some credit!
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The “W” for who has a particular significance for readers as well. Plagiarists steal credit for content, unnamed sources steal creditability from content.
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I’m guessing it wasn’t Erin Jordan’s decision/policy/mandate to leave out the names of the photographers or the organization—that probably came from above. But she’s the one who gets called out. Nice.
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Wow, this is a petty post. The “Who” in the Register’s story is the museums — the The Czech & Slovak Museum, the African-American Historical Museum & Cultural Center of Iowa and the University of Iowa Museum of Art in Iowa City. The “Who” is also all the people that are working hard to restore them, including Gail Naughton, Thomas Moore and Pamela White.
Accusing someone of bad journalism practices just because your ego was hurt isn’t fair. Reading a story on TV verbatim is not the same as this, and as an editor you should know the distinction.
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Karen is right that this is petty. It’s about a petty aspect of the journalism business and I would like to see it stop. Karen is also right that ripping off stories wholesale is not the same as leaving out a name that should be in the story (and if the photographs are in the story, the source of the photographs should be there, just as the name of the Harry Potter artist was there). They stem from a similar don’t-mention-the-competition mentality, but the scale is way different. I thought I made a distinction by saying that newspaper ethics were better and that we illustrated this tendency in “other ways,” but if you thought I was saying the offenses were comparable, I was not clear enough. Ripping off stories without credit is unethical. Failing to mention the competition where you should is just petty.
I should add that I invited Erin Jordan to comment on the blog and she declined. She agreed in an email exchange that she should have mentioned the photographers. And she shared with me two previous stories in which she did mention The Gazette appropriately. So I would say this was an oversight.
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In fairness, my original tweet said the following: “What would KCCI do without the Register? They get to read the Associated Press version of OUR story about Branstad ‘s brother tonight.”
Traditionally, if an organization gets its information from the AP, it credits the AP, even if the work is shared from a member organization. This is what KCCI did in this circumstance, which I don’t consider unethical or short-changing the competition. They got the story after us through AP. That’s the way it goes.
I was not accusing KCCI of stealing anything. I attempted to point out that most TV news organizations’ story list would be a lot thinner without a daily newspaper around to actually find out what is going on beyond siren-chasing and puppy mills.
I’m guessing, though I don’t know nor was I involved in the decisions regarding the photos of that package, that the Register published Gazette photos via the AP. Since our primary duty is to serve our readers and customers, I think this discussion is a touch more academic than anything else. I don’t think the public gives a handful of seed corn where their news comes from — only that its accurate, informative and occasionally revealing or entertaining.
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Daniel’s comment illustrates a shortcoming in Twitter. I inferred he was commenting on the common broadcast practice of using newspaper stories without credit. Instead, he was noting how much broadcast content originates with newspapers, even if they credit AP. With 140 characters, readers add their own context and meaning sometimes. I apologize.
And, to clarify, the Register did not use Gazette photos in this case, but wrote about a Cedar Rapids Museum of Art exhibit of flood photography, failing to note who took the photos.
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I certainly understand Steve’s point, but this seems like the wrong case with which to make it. A generic mention of a flood photography exhibit seems complete enough in this context. As Karen points out, the story isn’t about the exhibit, but about the museum. Would you think it strange if it mentioned an exhibit of, say, Midwestern paintings or Czech glassware in passing without mentioning specific artists? Doubtful.
This little game played by media outlets is tiresome, however. I remember in my Gazette days reading in the Press-Citizen about the “Hawkeye Challenge” basketball tournament, which conveniently left off the “Gazette” part of the name for as long as the Gazette sponsored it, something that didn’t happen with previous sponsor, Amana. And yes, the Gazette has been this petty, never crediting the Corridor Business Journal when it covers a speaker at one of our events. I hope to see that change.
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When I told you that I “should” have mentioned that Gazette photogs shot the photos featured in the CRMA exhibit, I meant that this would have been a fine addition to my story. Those photographers do great work and several of them are my friends. However, I WAS NOT obligated to do this professionally. It seems to me that you would have liked to have that plug for your staff, which I can understand, but saying that I was petty, or worse, is incorrect.
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A shortcoming with Twitter?! Say it ain’t so!
“With 140 characters, readers add their own context and meaning sometimes.”
The price of practicing 2009 journalism, I guess….
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