Poynter, fire this guy now

From Romenesko. The new M.E. at Poynter Online, when he was editor at a little paper in Colorado, had his staff ripping off competitors' stories for more than a decade ...

http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070222/UPDATES01/70222013

Greeley newspaper acknowledges ethical lapses

The Greeley Tribune has agreed to end a years-old practice of copying stories from competing newspapers and falsely labeling them as Associated Press stories, the newspaper’s publisher said today.

“That’s clearly a very bad journalism practice,” said Steve Weaver, the Tribune’s publisher.

Lehman Communications Publisher Ed Lehman said editors at the Loveland Reporter-Herald, which is owned by his company, spotted the practice and asked the Tribune last week to stop copying stories from the Reporter-Herald’s Web site.

“They apologized,” Lehman said. “We’ve asked them to stop.”

In at least two cases this month, the Tribune took stories from the Coloradoan and Loveland Reporter-Herald Web sites, copied them onto the Tribune Web site and put an Associated Press byline on the story.

Weaver said the practice began several years ago when Chris Cobler was the newspaper’s editor. Cobler is currently overseeing the paper’s online operations and announced this week that he was leaving to take a job with the Poynter Institute, a St. Petersburg, Fla., organization that provides training programs for professional journalists.

 

With any luck, he has some sort of probationary period, like anyone starting a new job.

Poynter can let him go during that. Otherwise, they'd lose a lot of credibility for keeping him.

 

Worked with Chris for a while a long time ago. Was the kind of guy who would do whatever it takes to make the paper better. In this case, he did a terrible disservice. Will say he did come across as a weasel to most who knew him.

 

Couldn't they have just called AP and had them actually do the dirty work of copying the stories themselves and move them on the wire? Then everyone is happy, except maybe the AP guy.

 

You can bet this would never happen at the Plain-Dealer.

 

You bet, Moonie. The Plain-Dealer is the copiee, not the copier.

 

Years? YEARS? How did no one notice this for years??

 

Maybe the other papers were just seething at the AP for all this time.

 

I'm confused about the time frame. I don't think he was there long enough for it to be 10 years or whatever. Could be wrong.

 

Good to see laziness and sneakiness being rewarded by one of the industry's seminal organizations.

 

See, I think that would have been perfectly sarcasty without all the bossy blueishness.

 

Agreed, Ace. What makes sarcasm work are those who don't get it. If you have to point out that you're being sarcastic, it's kind of like handing someone the punchline to a joke before you start telling it.