Peter King's latest tirade

[Tweener]

You guys have probably heard about this by now. Bleacher Report tweets out a Tom Brady quote from King's recent piece, without attributing it to King or The MMQB, King calls BR out about it in a series of tweets, BR eventually deletes the tweet and apologizes.

http://deadspin.com/peter-king-got-irate-at-bleacher-report-over-a-dumb-tom-1792349218

The reason I'm posting this is because I'm curious if this has happened to you. I work for a mid-sized publication near a massive market, and we routinely compete with one of the largest newspapers in the country for stories in our community. We have to fight like hell to get any sort of credit for our scoops because information is so easily pilfered without proper accreditation.

For example, twice in the last 15 months I've had original reporting swiped by the big paper without any sort of acknowledgement or attribution. In one instance, the bigger paper was getting credit on the "great scoop" by other major media outlets that were tweeting the breaking news out.

So, is Peter King right to get upset about this, or is this just the way of the industry right now?

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Peter King is right to get upset, and it's the way of the industry now

 

[CD Boogie]

He's 100 percent right, which is probably why BR deleted it and apologized. Unfortunately this **** happens all the time, and hasn't ended enough careers IMHO. Thing is, the average person doesn't give a ****. I was in a sports writing competition about a decade or so ago sponsored by a major site and one of the finalists copied verbatim a list column -- something like, 10 worst moments in Detroit sports history -- from another site. I busted him on it, he got tossed from the competition. And some friends of mine were like, Dude, you're being kind of a *****, ratting on somebody for plagiarism. A lot of people just don't get it, and that's why this stuff will continue to happen.

 

[Tweener]

And some friends of mine were like, Dude, you're being kind of a *****, ratting on somebody for plagiarism. A lot of people just don't get it, and that's why this stuff will continue to happen.

This is where I was going. Like King, I'm pissed when this happens to me -- but a lot of people act like it's no big deal. That's really disappointing.

 

[CD Boogie]

This is where I was going. Like King, I'm pissed when this happens to me -- but a lot of people act like it's no big deal. That's really disappointing.

It's disappointing because it just shows how stupid people are. Stealing someone's written thoughts and getting paid for them is just flat out theft, same to me as stealing intellectual property or someone's idea for an app or a similar chord progression in a song. I mean, good on Led Zeppelin for getting away with theft for so many years, I guess, but Stairway to Heaven was obviously flat out ripped off from Spirit. People who don't understand or care about such things deserve to have someone eat their porridge, sit in their chairs and sleep in their beds -- and go upper deck on their toilet.

 

[HanSenSE]

Yet, stuff like this, until Turner took over, was pretty much B/R's bread and butter. They've been busted here several times.

 

[MisterCreosote]

 

[Big Circus]

It's disappointing because it just shows how stupid people are. Stealing someone's written thoughts and getting paid for them is just flat out theft, same to me as stealing intellectual property or someone's idea for an app or a similar chord progression in a song. I mean, good on Led Zeppelin for getting away with theft for so many years, I guess, but Stairway to Heaven was obviously flat out ripped off from Spirit. People who don't understand or care about such things deserve to have someone eat their porridge, sit in their chairs and sleep in their beds -- and go upper deck on their toilet.

Funny you should mention Stairway...this story just came out today.

The Inside Story of the Most Unintentionally Complicated 'Wayne's World' Gag

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

I just love his little-boy-smiling-cuz-he-knows-he's-lying-and-you're-stupid-if-you-buy-it visage at the very end.

 

[Old Time Hockey]

He's 100 percent right, which is probably why BR deleted it and apologized. Unfortunately this **** happens all the time, and hasn't ended enough careers IMHO. Thing is, the average person doesn't give a ****. I was in a sports writing competition about a decade or so ago sponsored by a major site and one of the finalists copied verbatim a list column -- something like, 10 worst moments in Detroit sports history -- from another site. I busted him on it, he got tossed from the competition. And some friends of mine were like, Dude, you're being kind of a *****, ratting on somebody for plagiarism. A lot of people just don't get it, and that's why this stuff will continue to happen.

Always — ALWAYS — call someone on this stuff when you're aware of it. And honestly, I never really trust anyone again after they do this. If you'll cross that line once, you're probably willing to do it again. Early in my career, a guy at a nearby paper copied a column of mine verbatim. (Pre-internet days, it would be easy to get away with it. I just happened to see an exchange copy of his paper.) I called him and suggested it was not a good idea and he should not do it again, or the next call wouldn't be to him, but to his boss. He sputtered something about "being in the public domain" but didn't do it again, at least with my stuff. A few years later, the guy applies at the larger paper I'd moved to — and actually suggested that I'd be a person to ask about his work. So the ME asked, I told them that story, and that was the last I ever heard of the guy.

 

[SFIND]

I've had my stuff ripped off and used by other websites -- and a major metro in one instance -- without attribution. It pisses me off beyond belief... but what pisses me off almost as much in the age of "aggregation" is that some sites' whole existence come from ripping **** off, but it's okay because they'll link three words in the last graph to the original source.

I run into this often because we have high-tier prospects at least every couple of years, and recruiting sites rip **** off. They've gotten better in recent years about at least the three-word linking part. Now, if I can just get them to stop ripping off my photos (and no, recruiting sites, crediting me doesn't mean you can use them without my express permission, because I own the copyright).

 

[ChrisLong]

Funny you should mention Stairway...this story just came out today.

The Inside Story of the Most Unintentionally Complicated 'Wayne's World' Gag

I was in high school with Randy Wolfe, who left school early to go to New York, where Jimi Hendrix rechristened him Randy California. Didn't know him, but friends of mine who did always said he was a great guy. He died saving his son from drowning off Kauai. Did see Spirit play numerous times around town.

 

[da man]

I knew I had posted this before -- I just didn't realize it was in 2006 (holy ****, I feel old now).

Not exactly the same thing, but...

I once wrote a big piece that prominently featured an important previously unreported fact regarding a major sports story in our area. A couple weeks later, the nearby big city paper reported the same fact under the headline: "Now It Can Be Told."

When I was covering an NFL team for a suburban paper, I wrote a huge, four-story package saying the nearby big city was going to make a bid for its first Super Bowl. It ran in a double truck complete with charts, graphs, a rundown on how the Super Bowl bid process works -- the whole nine yards. Three days later, big city paper ran a story saying the city is going to bid for the Super Bowl. That evening, AP sends out a story: "Big city will make a bid for Super Bowl (INSERT ROMAN NUMERAL HERE), the Big City Daily reported."

 

[stix]

Yeah, in agreement with everyone here. Personally, even if it seems like the most minute detail, I ALWAYS credit other sources if I use their info for a story. I had one former colleague just recently tell me not to bother crediting him with a little nugget that he dug up that I briefly mentioned in a column. I told him I'd not hear of it. I always credit. It's the right thing to do, but people are so clueless about it.

This fall one of the three big high schools in our city opened up a sparkling new football stadium. Had a big dedication before the first game there. There are two current NFL players (drafted the same year, no less) who played at this school. I direct tweeted one of them to see if I could get some comments for a story I was writing about the new stadium opening. Sure enough, he responded with a pretty lengthy comment, and I put it in the paper.

So, the next night, as the school principal is giving a big dedication speech at midfield, he reads verbatim the tweet from the player, and the crowd erupted. Of course I had no problem with the tweet being read, but the principal basically made it sound like the player tweeted the school directly and unprompted, and the principal acted like such a big shot about it. Never thought to mention it was tweeted to the local paper because the sports reporter (me) spent the time to reach out. Had I not done so, there would've been no comment from the player at all. Was it a huge deal? No. But it irritated me to the point where I called the principal the next day just to tell him what I thought and that in the future he should cite the media outlet that did the actual work.

Of course, he didn't really understand. He just said, "Well, someone shared it on Facebook," as if information just grows out of thin air on social media. Obviously, this is a problem we can all relate to.

 

[Tweener]

I knew I had posted this before -- I just didn't realize it was in 2006 (holy ****, I feel old now).

Not exactly the same thing, but...

I once wrote a big piece that prominently featured an important previously unreported fact regarding a major sports story in our area. A couple weeks later, the nearby big city paper reported the same fact under the headline: "Now It Can Be Told."

When I was covering an NFL team for a suburban paper, I wrote a huge, four-story package saying the nearby big city was going to make a bid for its first Super Bowl. It ran in a double truck complete with charts, graphs, a rundown on how the Super Bowl bid process works -- the whole nine yards. Three days later, big city paper ran a story saying the city is going to bid for the Super Bowl. That evening, AP sends out a story: "Big city will make a bid for Super Bowl (INSERT ROMAN NUMERAL HERE), the Big City Daily reported."

Same thing happened here.

In one instance I mentioned earlier, the nearby big paper pilfered my breaking news story without accreditation, and the national media, likely not knowing any better, cited the big paper for the scoop.

At first I thought it was a coincidence that the big paper stumbled on the story after ours ran, then I read it. The author, a well respected national beat writer, used the exact same anecdotal lede. That takes some balls.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

Kings right, and he's big enough to bring attention to it. Smaller pubs might not get their points across when it happens to them but should still point it out when they can.

 

[stix]

Equally annoying to me was the Deadspin piece about the whole issue basically calling King a baby and saying he overreacted. BS.

There are things to poke at Peter King about if you want, but not this. I don't give a **** if he was credited within the story, he should've been credited in the tweet and in any use of any quote that he procured in whatever medium it's used.

Alarming how idiots in that battle were saying things like, "So nobody can use a quote from your stories but you?" Clueless.

 

[Elliotte Friedman]

I have a lot of trouble in my job with this. There are reporters who do nothing but listen to our radio interviews, transcribing them for their own websites. I hate it. Not only is is stealing, it also mangles context.

I'm currently negotiating with my employer about stopping all radio interviews because it's more trouble than it's worth.

But a pox on BR for making me side with King on anything, that ****.

 

[typefitter]

What's up with that Deadspin piece? I mean, except that they hate Peter King and I guess their writers are contractually required to side against him. Otherwise, that situation is pretty cut and dry: You credit exclusive quotes, and if someone doesn't, you call them out for it. That's about as non-controversial a stance as you can take in this business. Not shocked that Deadspin, which block quotes the **** out of stories and then puts a h/t at the end, would be dumb here, but... Okay, I guess I answered my own question.

 

[JC]

I have a lot of trouble in my job with this. There are reporters who do nothing but listen to our radio interviews, transcribing them for their own websites. I hate it. Not only is is stealing, it also mangles context.

I'm currently negotiating with my employer about stopping all radio interviews because it's more trouble than it's worth.

But a pox on BR for making me side with King on anything, that ****.

The transcription never takes into account the tone or the context the comment was made. I've listened to an interview youhad then read Chris Nichols transcription and I can see why you would want to stop the radio interviews.

Are you contractually obligated or do you get paid extra from the station?