Sharing content from competitors

[Tweener]

This one seems pretty obvious, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on sharing content and re-tweeting beat writers you compete against.

Would think this would be a clear no-no on a beat with multiple writers covering the same team, but I'm seeing a writer I follow on a big beat ocassionally sharing content from and retweeting his competitors and am wondering why he hasn't been told to stop.

 

[MNgremlin]

Better to just steal the content and tweet it yourself without attribution, am I right....?

"Sources say" = my competitor's Twitter timeline says.

 

[Deskgrunt50]

Nope. Absolutely forbidden.

Don't know why it would be allowed anywhere.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Utterly ridiculous. No way in hell we would ever share or promote a competitor's content by retweeting it or otherwise.

 

[Moderator1]

I love the two posters above me but I disagree on this one. Someone does a nice job, show them a little professional love/courtesy/whatever. Is it really going to hurt your business that badly? I used to do it now and then at The Times (and one of my writers didn't much like it but whatever). Now, we weren't exactly even-strength competitors with the Post (though we held our own in some areas). But now and then I'd tweet something like "our esteemed competitors at the Post did a great job with this piece on (whatever)" and I wouldn't lose a lick of sleep.

I still do it some today. I recently posted a great piece on Facebook by another outlet and my boss was among those who liked it. Tweeted it, too.

Don't do it regularly but doing it periodically isn't a bad thing.

Recognizing and giving a nod to quality work shouldn't be frowned upon. But maybe that's just me.

 

[jr/shotglass]

For years, we had one of the local talking heads consistently present our newspaper's breaking news without any attribution to who broke it.

In recent years, he's acquiesced to the point of saying, "According to a local newspaper ..."

What an ass.

 

[ICanRowCanoe?]

Reminds me of the esurance policy to show you competitors' quotes with the idea that esurance is usually the cheapest, but sometimes they're not.

We usually beat the competition, but sometimes they deserve a tip of the hat.

I've got no problem with it.

 

[JCT89]

I love the two posters above me but I disagree on this one. Someone does a nice job, show them a little professional love/courtesy/whatever. Is it really going to hurt your business that badly? I used to do it now and then at The Times (and one of my writers didn't much like it but whatever). Now, we weren't exactly even-strength competitors with the Post (though we held our own in some areas). But now and then I'd tweet something like "our esteemed competitors at the Post did a great job with this piece on (whatever)" and I wouldn't lose a lick of sleep.

I still do it some today. I recently posted a great piece on Facebook by another outlet and my boss was among those who liked it. Tweeted it, too.

Don't do it regularly but doing it periodically isn't a bad thing.

Recognizing and giving a nod to quality work shouldn't be frowned upon. But maybe that's just me.

This is where I stand on it. I don't see any harm in occasionally spotlighting a competitor's work especially if it's a feature.

 

[PaperDoll]

We have a policy against any social media including competitors' links (though the same people who ignore the social-media politics ban ignore this policy too). If I think somebody did good work, I'll reach out personally behind the scenes.

 

[HanSenSE]

Depends on the content too. If I see a score that's important to our readers, I'll pass it along, No hesitation.

 

[1HPGrad]

More and more, your competitors have become your partners, even if in a different chain. Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times share a bunch of stuff. Miami Herald and S-S share stuff. Unthinkable back in Greg Cote's day. Fairly common now.

 

[Tweener]

I agree that sharing a link once in a while to a particularly impressive story isn't going to lose your audience. I don't have a big issue with that, as long as it's not frequent.

I do take issue with a reporter on a beat re-tweeting little nuggets of info from a competitor rather than taking the extra step to confirm the information and tweet it out independently. That kind of laziness is my main issue.

 

[Moderator1]

Oh yeah, no question. But that's another issue. Using THEM to do YOUR reporting, no way. Hat-tipping them for work well done? Not a problem

 

[Double Down]

 

[PaperDoll]

Is it different when the retweeted link comes from a multinational outlet, as in Double Down's example, rather than a local community paper? I think the "report, don't retweet" mantra comes from a desire not to drive readers to the much larger competitor.

 

[Doc Holliday]

I love the two posters above me but I disagree on this one. Someone does a nice job, show them a little professional love/courtesy/whatever. Is it really going to hurt your business that badly? I used to do it now and then at The Times (and one of my writers didn't much like it but whatever). Now, we weren't exactly even-strength competitors with the Post (though we held our own in some areas). But now and then I'd tweet something like "our esteemed competitors at the Post did a great job with this piece on (whatever)" and I wouldn't lose a lick of sleep.

I still do it some today. I recently posted a great piece on Facebook by another outlet and my boss was among those who liked it. Tweeted it, too.

Don't do it regularly but doing it periodically isn't a bad thing.

Recognizing and giving a nod to quality work shouldn't be frowned upon. But maybe that's just me.

I totally get where you're coming from with this and agree with you in many respects. However, when you have a publisher that say it's your ass if you do, well, you do what your publisher says.

 

[Moderator1]

For sure - the boss may not always be right but the boss is always the boss.
May be a wrong boss, may be a ****head boss. But still the boss.

 

[jr/shotglass]

I recall when begging up photos from another newspaper was verboten. But that slowly was worked through, both through showing your competitor that you would always be willing to return the favor, and once that was established (at least up and down the Atlantic Coast), throwing a little shame toward those who would hold out ("Do you know you're the only paper we've dealt with in the last six months who has said no?"). We turned the corner on that around 15-18 years ago, I'd say.

And that sure made a huge difference if you were putting the paper out that night, knowing that if there was a photo out there you needed with a feature, you could at least make a run at it.

Just always credit, and always be willing to reciprocate. It worked for almost all of us.

 

[Southwinds]

I wonder if the original poster and I are thinking about the same individual.

There's a reporter on a fairly high-profile beat who, likely because it's an organizational thing, always retweets and aggregates competitors' reports on the same beat.

That individual writes compelling stories and seems to get reporting and all that, then has the aggregating operation as well.

In my mind, though, if you're telling readers "Outlet X had this" and "According to Outlet X," why would they ever want to come to you? You're telling them the other outlet has more information.

 

[jr/shotglass]

You're doing it because it's the right thing to do. And if they get the story first or better and you don't ... well, improve.