Stew Rieckman today derides as "cyber sniping" the web reporting on Father Martin Carr's Place 2B Shelter. Most of that reporting was done by Gary at This Week in Oshkosh, and includes this piece, as well as "No Room at the Inn," and "Wisconsin's Largest Homeless Shelter? Empty?"
While it may be true that some of the anonymous comments in response to Gary's reports crossed over into sniping range, the reports themselves tell the Carr story accurately and with the passion of some of the best muckraking journalism.
Meanwhile, Alex Hummel's report in today's Northwestern makes no mention of Gary's This Week in Oshkosh reports, nor any other web activity on this topic, such as the fact that I initially reported the League of Women Voters study (scroll down to Oshkosh topics) Hummel refers to and that Miles Maguire released Carr's tax returns.
I think I understand the game being played here. Rieckman has been using the term "authenticating" to describe the mainstream media's relationship to blogs and other web sources. But it seems like what is really going on is more complex and troublesome. The "authenticating" turns out to be an attempt to undermine the cyber sources by labeling them as "snipers" to readers who might never see them, and then to literally steal the reporting from those sources without proper attribution.
To authenticate a story means to cite it properly and then provide the information that supports and/or does not support the story. That is not what the Northwestern story on Carr does; instead it talks about nameless "critics." Then it proceeds to list those criticisms as if they reflect some kind of original reporting by the Northwestern. In fact there is very little original information provided in the Northwestern story save for the interview with Carr. Not being a journalism professor, I don't know if the story could be called plagiarism. Perhaps Miles Maguire might know.
Professor Maguire last year complained of the Northwestern's lack of journalistic "etiquette" in stealing web information without giving proper credit. I think it is time to revisit that complaint, and time for those us in the blogosphere to be more vigilant in learning what are our rights in these areas. Blogging cannot and must not become a way for the Gannett Corporation to get reporting and research done for free. That would be a travesty.
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10 comments:
Is the Fr. Carr story plagiarism? Plagiarism is an ugly word and an ugly act, and I am hesitant to use it in this case.
Most journalists consider the issue of giving credit to other journalists (whether employed in the mainstream media or working independently) more a matter of common decency and professional courtesy than ethics.
Howie Kurtz, the Washington Post's media critic, wrote a column about this issue last summer.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/31/AR2005073101051.html
This is the conclusion he came to:
"Where should the line be drawn? Major news outlets are actually better about this than they were 20 years ago, when they would grudgingly refer to 'published reports' if they gave credit at all. But making a couple of calls to confirm a story that a journalist would not otherwise know about doesn't excuse the obligation to give proper credit. Plus, it's the decent thing to do."
You raise an excellent point about the need for adequate citation. As the information explosion continues to overwhelm us all, it will be increasingly important to find our way to the most authoritative and credible sources of information.
(If you think about it, or look at some of the recent books on Google, you'll see that evaluating the relevance and worthiness of Web sites is the secret to the company's success.)
Historically the mainstream media's strategy has been either to ignore or denigrate other news outlets in the community.
That makes more sense in the linear, hierarchical world of the last century than in the networked environment of the current one.
My money is that the network has inherent strengths that will overcome those of a hierarchy every time.
In this context, the challenge for the mainstream media is to decide where to place itself.
Tony are you committed to make sure everyone who submits a comment will give there name and not let anonymous postings to occur.
I wanted to let you know that I, as a member of the Oshkosh Area League of Women Voters who was one of those involved in the study of homelessness, emailed a copy of that study to both Stew Rieckman and Alex Hummell when I learned they were going to look at the issue. The study is also available on the local League's website so is available to the public. I assumed that some of the pertinent information that we found might be of use to Alex Hummell in his researh. I certainly do not consider his using information from the report plagiarism.
Mike,
So far on the blog I have allowed anonymous comments. We have had some of the typical Internet trolls submit anonymous comments, but by and large the comments have been responsible. In this blog's inaugural post I said I would delete only those posts that defame others. We've had some passive aggressive, cheap shots appear, but I don't think anything yet that could be labeled defamation. --TP
Ann,
As I said in my post, I don't know if the Northwestern story could be considered plagiarism. My post of course was/is concerned with much more than the use of the LWV study.
The bigger point of my post is that the LWV Study, Carr's tax returns, and other information that Hummel's story presents had already been posted on Internet sites and used for reporting on the Carr matter. The very criticisms of Carr that the story addresses had already been posted on websites. Why not report the source(s) of the criticism?
A reader of Hummel's story and Rieckman's column could only reach the conclusion that the online reporting on Carr has been done by "unnamed critics," anonymous sources, and snipers. That's simply not true.
I challenge anyone to read Gary Jepson's writings, the LWV study that you refer to, and other online sources and then tell me how all of that can be reduced to "sniping." For Mr. Rieckman to try and make it look like only the Northwestern has done any responsible reporting on this issue is offensive and misleading.
The truth is that the Carr story had been told online, and rather than do the responsible thing and give Jepson and others the credit they deserve for telling the story, the Northwestern chose to denigrate the efforts of the online authors. I think that's sad and wrong, and I think that local online authors from now on are going to have be vigilant to protect their writings and their reputations now that we see the kind of game that is being played. (Matt Drudge, for example, after he saw that his reporting on the Drudge Report kept getting lifted by the mainstream press with no attribution, finally started including statements like "Exclusive: Must Cite Drudge Report" on his original stories).
The Howie Kurtz piece from the Washington Post piece that Miles Maguire cites in his response to my original posting I think is very helpful in sorting out some of these issues.
tony,
i just got done reading the online links on the northwestern's page to the stories they previously wrote about father carr. most of the information in today's story was a repeat of the bits and pieces in from earlier stories.
the story today seems to tie up all the information the northwestern had reported earlier.
does the fact that the newspaper reported on the story earlier make a difference?
i'm kind of confused because i don't know if everyone reads all the links. is there a statue of limitations on how long information is good for?
I read the article on carr and once again the northwestern has chosen to align itself with this individual as they did with Joe Paulus until his "mission" was to go to prison. I found it interesting as will the IRS that carr is both president and treasurer of his mission. Very poor accounting practice.
Stew has been dragged kicking and screaming into the blogosphere and it's pretty apparent that he is resentful of this threat to his life career. Who isn't? Computers have completely changed most careers including my own and I admit some resentment but there didn't seem to be a choice. I'm sorry that a man in his influential position has not been able to be more graceful about it.
There were questions on Father Carr that have not benn addressed in the report from the Northwestern. 1. Why was Carr asked to leave St. Peters in Oshkosh. 2. Is Carr a priest that is still in good standing with the Church. 3. Is Carr under investgation by any law inforcement 4. Is Carr under any court order to stay away from minors. These are very important issues that should be ansered. And one last question what ever happened to the over 1 million dollars that was left over from the years that were reported in the Northwestern????
He keeps that money for himself
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