Bloggers As News Sources

Oh my, but this is good. Well bad, but good. It appears the Associated Press has plagerized a blogger. This via the
Huffington Post.

There are many things that bother me about plagiarism, but nothing irks me more than when a mainstream reporter (or organization) with all of the resources of a small nation at their disposal lifts from the small press, freelance journalists, and bloggers.

...

In response, several GLBT groups contacted us and issued a statement. We gave the advocacy groups our notes and article, which they then took to the AP and demanded that the story be covered. The AP was given our article and maybe our notes.

On March 14, 2006, the AP did their own article, left out any attribution to me or my publication and lifted not only my research but also whole sections of my article for their own (making cosmetic changes of course).

We contacted an AP senior editor and ombudsmen both and both admitted to having had the article passed on to them, and both stated that they viewed us as a blog and because we were a blog, they did not need to credit us. What we are or are not is frankly irrelevant. What is relevant is that by using a term like blog to somehow excuse plagiarism, the mainstream press continues to lower the bar for acceptable behavior.

The cold truth is bloggers are making a difference even the MSM can't ignore. Many bloggers have good sources and they are quicker at disseminating info. And not infrequently bloggers are more accurate than the MSM.

Many, if not most, journalists look down on bloggers because we have no editors and can post info which might be completely inaccurate. True charge.

I can say Bush is the illegitimate child of a liason between Bush 41 and Bush 43's nanny. Would I do that? Hell no I wouldn't. I wouldn't because, like the WaPo case involving Ben Domenech's plagerism, the internets would cry bullshit.

Bloggers are careful about having and crediting sources. We offer opinion, but facts must be linked. We bloggers let the reader look at our raw data. We open ourselves up to critique of our interpretation of said data. Not so for journalists.