radio station using your stuff without attribution

[Herbert Anchovy]

What can be done about this? I'm assuming this is an offense you just sort of have to swallow. One of the AM talk stations' "news segments" basically consists of reading the top stories in the paper, including exclusives and newsbreaks, and then closing it with "This is Joe Blow for WXXX."

 

[Football_Bat]

I hope they're at least re-writing it for radio and not "ripping and reading."

Listening to copy being read straight from the paper is painful to say the least.

But at least in radio you don't have to worry about design. </zitpopper> :

 

[lone star scribe]

This reminds me of an early stop in my career. I was covering preps, and the radio color guy for the local HS football team (he was also the news director at the coffee grinder station) pulled out our Friday paper in the press box and read from it on the air during his pregame show. Stats, notes, things like that. Being young and naive, I was floored by the obvious lack of contrition on his part. He said, "I just don't have the time to do all this research."

Our solution: I became a regular pregame and halftime guest on his show, he plugged our coverage and our paper (and I) got exposure. It was better than bitching and moaning about it. And the color guy and I got to be good friends, never a negative in this biz.

 

[Flying Headbutt]

You sure he didn't get it off the AP wire?

 

[SnoopyBoy]

This happens a lot in our market, which is a major market. For example...
At the winter meetings, we had a scoop on our team in serious talks with an agent of a slugger. The radio station had someone at the meetings, but I had someone listen to their reports throughout that day and they didn't have it. No one did.
Lo and behold, the next morning, when our story was in the paper, the station suddenly was reporting Joe Blow was in serious talks with the Bad News Bears. I couldn't believe it.

 

[outofplace]

This reminds me of an early stop in my career. I was covering preps, and the radio color guy for the local HS football team (he was also the news director at the coffee grinder station) pulled out our Friday paper in the press box and read from it on the air during his pregame show. Stats, notes, things like that. Being young and naive, I was floored by the obvious lack of contrition on his part. He said, "I just don't have the time to do all this research."

Our solution: I became a regular pregame and halftime guest on his show, he plugged our coverage and our paper (and I) got exposure. It was better than bitching and moaning about it. And the color guy and I got to be good friends, never a negative in this biz.

I remember seeing plenty of that at my first stop, with a couple of local radio outlets and one tv station. Sometimes they had the class to give us credit. Sometimes they didn't. We actually had pretty good relations with most of those guys, so even if they didn't attribute the facts and statistics to us directly, they usually said thanks and plugged the paper at some point in the broadcasts.

 

[ogre]

First place I worked at was prep baseball crazy. We did a position by position preveiw for the top team with a nice graphic and stats and all that. We show up for the game and the radio guys have the page taped to the desk in fron of them. Pretty sure they gave credit.

Back home there is a radio guy who straight up rips from the local daily. You can sit there with the paper as he gives his report and flip through it with him. And, he does not give credit.

 

[spnited]

Sorry, folks, but this is no big deal.
Local radio and TV people have been reading stuff straight from newspapers for years. Hell, Russo and Francesa do it every day of the week on the biggest sports talk station in the country and nobody bats an eye.
We in newspapers are fanatical about attribution since the Jayson Blair mess. Radio and TV people don't care. They figure once it's in print, it's public record...end of discussion.

 

[tyler durden 71351]

Ripping and reading is just par for the course with radio and TV, especially in smaller markets. I think it's just part of the culture. About all you can do is hope every now and then they mention the name of your rag or put you on the air.

 

[BH33]

I couldn't agree more. Sometimes the radio station here attributes the local paper, but once it's out, it's public. I think the only way it's a problem is if the radio or TV station claims it as their own breaking news. Otherwise, no big deal.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Jeez, Mike Francesa would have to get a job if he couldn't lift wholesale from print . . .

 

[spnited]

Jeez, Mike Francesa would have to get a job if he couldn't lift wholesale from print . . .

DING DING DING

We have a winner. No more calls please!

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Correctomundo.

For the rest of you, quit bitching. You read like a bunch of titty babies crying for milk.

I'm not bitching about it. I don't think it's too much to tack on the name of the paper, and think it's bull**** that a radio drone would read the first two grafs of the story verbatim as if he wrote it. Even if they're going to lift it, they can write their own copy -- or maybe they can't.

 

[outofplace]

Correctomundo.

For the rest of you, quit bitching. You read like a bunch of titty babies crying for milk.

I'm not bitching about it. I don't think it's too much to tack on the name of the paper, and think it's bull**** that a radio drone would read the first two grafs of the story verbatim as if he wrote it. Even if they're going to lift it, they can write their own copy -- or maybe they can't.

Eh, just tell the newbie to fetch you a beer already.

 

[leo1]

You sure he didn't get it off the AP wire?

bingo! the local broadcast newsminutes or newswatches are basically the top stories from the local paper. hopefully they're slightly re-written. also, the local broadcast bureau rewrites newspaper stories throughout the day. the broadcaster is under no obligation to cite the newspaper that AP copy credits.

 

[Starman]

Sorry, folks, but this is no big deal.
Local radio and TV people have been reading stuff straight from newspapers for years. Hell, Russo and Francesa do it every day of the week on the biggest sports talk station in the country and nobody bats an eye.
We in newspapers are fanatical about attribution since the Jayson Blair mess. Radio and TV people don't care. They figure once it's in print, it's public record...end of discussion.

Correctomundo.

For the rest of you, quit bitching. You read like a bunch of titty babies crying for milk.

Bull****. It IS a big deal.

I was once the SE in a town with a 6-day daily, very heavy on local coverage, and a tin-horn radio station that also liked to bang its drum about being great on local coverage. Every Tuesday and Thursday, they would cover a game live -- pregame and postgame shows, very big deal.

After they returned from the game they covered, that was it. No information on any other games until the next morning. Our paper was delivered early, about 6:45 a.m., so usually they'd open the 7 a.m. news with a big flourish: "Last night's complete high school roundup!!"

And then proceed to read our stories word for word, right down to the box score. "And Ollie Dorkus chipped in for one free throw for one point."

The radio station made a series of snarky promo ads, "Get your sports live -- don't pick it up off your doorstep the next day. Get the latest results, not yesterday's news."

We got pissed about it. Our publisher talked to their station manager, asking him to lay off the attack ads, and at least give us a name check if they were going to steal our stuff. The station manager basically told him to go **** off.

Eventually, we fixed them good. One night there was a big game between two of the top-ranked teams in the state. THEY covered some other game. We printed up a copy of our front page with everything the same -- except we reversed the final score between the two ranked teams (a huge upset, which would have completely thrown the state rankings in two classes into a frenzy.) We even reversed the box score and the quotes, so it had the wrong team winning all the way through.

We printed up a few dozen copies of this version, and told our circulation manager to make sure THAT the one that was delivered to the radio station.

They busted on the air at 7 a.m. with their big exclusive: "Huge upset in showdown of state-ranked teams!!", and continued breathlessly until 9 a.m., when their receptionist came in to answer the firestorm of calls from fans of the team which REALLY DID win the game, all shouting, "WTF are you talking about?"

The station manager called our publisher, all flamed off and threatening to sue. The publisher told him to **** off.

 

[tyler durden 71351]

Sorry, folks, but this is no big deal.
Local radio and TV people have been reading stuff straight from newspapers for years. Hell, Russo and Francesa do it every day of the week on the biggest sports talk station in the country and nobody bats an eye.
We in newspapers are fanatical about attribution since the Jayson Blair mess. Radio and TV people don't care. They figure once it's in print, it's public record...end of discussion.

Correctomundo.

For the rest of you, quit bitching. You read like a bunch of titty babies crying for milk.

Bull****. It IS a big deal.

I was once the SE in a town with a 6-day daily, very heavy on local coverage, and a tin-horn radio station that also liked to bang its drum about being great on local coverage. Every Tuesday and Thursday, they would cover a game live -- pregame and postgame shows, very big deal.

After they returned from the game they covered, that was it. No information on any other games until the next morning. Our paper was delivered early, about 6:45 a.m., so usually they'd open the 7 a.m. news with a big flourish: "Last night's complete high school roundup!!"

And then proceed to read our stories word for word, right down to the box score. "And Ollie Dorkus chipped in for one free throw for one point."

The radio station made a series of snarky promo ads, "Get your sports live -- don't pick it up off your doorstep the next day. Get the latest results, not yesterday's news."

We got pissed about it. Our publisher talked to their station manager, asking him to lay off the attack ads, and at least give us a name check if they were going to steal our stuff. The station manager basically told him to go **** off.

Eventually, we fixed them good. One night there was a big game between two of the top-ranked teams in the state. THEY covered some other game. We printed up a copy of our front page with everything the same -- except we reversed the final score between the two ranked teams (a huge upset, which would have completely thrown the state rankings in two classes into a frenzy.) We even reversed the box score and the quotes, so it had the wrong team winning all the way through.

We printed up a few dozen copies of this version, and told our circulation manager to make sure THAT the one that was delivered to the radio station.

They busted on the air at 7 a.m. with their big exclusive: "Huge upset in showdown of state-ranked teams!!", and continued breathlessly until 9 a.m., when their receptionist came in to answer the firestorm of calls from fans of the team which REALLY DID win the game, all shouting, "WTF are you talking about?"

The station manager called our publisher, all flamed off and threatening to sue. The publisher told him to **** off.

That is a great story! Your publisher is my new hero.

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

TV station in a close-by market ripped off a story of mine w/o attribution for its Web site. Told my editor about it, and she wrote the TV station a nice email with the words ''copyrighted material'' included. In five minutes, we got an apology email saying they credited the paper on the air but forgot to do it online (uh, sure).
They took it off immediately.
Now if only a certain paper in my neck of the woods could apologize...

 

[dixiehack]

Starman is right. Maybe you could dismiss this with a wink and a sigh once upon a time, but with ad dollars growing scarce, there isn't any room for freeriders. If nothing else, papers should find a radio station to partner with, license their content under profitable terms, then blitz everyone else with cease and desist letters.

 

[leo1]

you people are nuts. this is called reality. i realize it sucks to see your hard work broadcast without acknowledging your hard work -- it definitely happened to me when i was in the business -- but because you've reported the news, you don't hold a monopoly on it. you don't own what you reported. copyright doesn't apply to broadcast rights. anyone with a microphone and the right equipment is free to read the newspaper on the air and not give attribution.