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SE plagarism?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by North61, May 3, 2007.

  1. North61

    North61 Member

    I was slightly pissed today when I discovered this.

    Recently a playoff game on the beat I cover ran late, leading to a first run story in the print edition without quotes but it did have the final score. Anyways, it was an amazing game so I did my job, did some interviews and updated said story on the Web site and felt pretty good about it.

    After I came back from a few days off, I noticed the SE basically wrote his own version the story for a second-day gamer two days after said game- which read like an editorial. There were attributed emotions, incorrect info and basically it was a piece of shit. I would not have been as mad about this, but, he lifted quotes out of my web gamer from the night before and inserted them in this un-bylined story and did not identify that the quotes were from after the game.

    Now, normally I would get up in the face of the SE and ME over this. But last week I had a big argument -but professional- over the paper not sending me to the national tournament to cover this team, which is something I did last year and won a nice lil award for enterprise reporting. Keep in mind this is a year-round beat. Part of the reasoning was the paper could not get gamers in because of time zone issues and the Web site traffic did not justify the expense. Yet when I offered to pay my way there and just asked for 40 hours pay, I was denied. Management said the same, great job could be done on desk in the newsroom.

    Yet here we are, running second-day gamers and I have to work late Saturday to get a gamer on the web.

    Sure a little venting, but I always love the advice and wit on SportsJournalists.com
     
  2. Chi City 81

    Chi City 81 Guest

  3. North61

    North61 Member

  4. [​IMG]

    Take one and call me in the morning.
     
  5. Meat Loaf

    Meat Loaf Guest

    I don't know about the plagarism stuff, but don't be surprised about how they want you to handle the beat. Although all the "feet on the street" bullshit is passed around, we're nearly browbeat into staying in the office to write stories over the phone because it's cheap. Just bottom-line dictating, quality be damned.
     
  6. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    to be honest, the "plagarism" thing comes off as a little me-esque.
     
  7. amraeder

    amraeder Well-Known Member

    It's the fact that the guy did a piss-poor job of the rewrite that would piss me off the most.
    Yanking the quotes wouldn't bug me as much as the attributed emotions and incorrect info. He could have at least taken the time to call you, make sure he got the info right and made sure the emotions actually happened.
     
  8. North61

    North61 Member

    It was more of a title to bring people into the thread. And sure it may sound selfish but I do take my beat seriously and it sucks having an SE who has not written anything about said beat since I was on vacation nine months ago put that out. If it was accurate, original and decently written, I really wouldn't mind.

    It's frustrating because non-quoted selections from the gamer were spliced into his editorial/story, whatever you want to call it, including the yanked quotes. It just feels quite iffy and it's lame he didn't have the balls to put a byline on it.
     
  9. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    i could be all wrong on this north, but i'm guessing he didn't byline it because he used your quotes. also, if it sucked so bad, why would you want your name associated with it anyway?
     
  10. North61

    North61 Member

    I'd prefer his byline on it, so people can attribute the suck to him, not me.

    It's tough to understand why a rewritten, two-day old gamer was stripped across the top of the Sunday sports front page. The people got the basic gamer in the paper the following day and an extended one on the web if they so desired. Why the hell would the reader want two day old news? Do the quotes alone warrant that rewrite to make it 'look' fresh to the reader? I think not. I think it makes us look like idiots and is a waste of time for the reader.
     
  11. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    why an SE would strip a two-day gamer across the top of a section is beyond me. would you mind one quick thought of unsolicited advice to go along with that, though?
     
  12. North61

    North61 Member

    What's the advice? Something a la Get over it. It's the business.
     
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