What I'm not buying is the mainstream media's argument that by using large bodies of content, blogs and news aggregators are taking traffic away from the newspapers because, as one "long-time Herald reporter" told Random Pixels, ""Sure they link to our stories, but who's going to click through after they've read the entire story on the Huffington Post?"
Here's a couple answers, Long-Time Herald Reporter: Someone who likes what they just read and wants to see more stories like it, that's who. Someone who wants to see the comments to the story. Someone who wasn't planning on stopping by the Herald that morning but after reading the story might click on the link to not only take them to the specific piece that they just read but maybe the newspaper as a whole. So that they can click from article to article and drive up site traffic which means better numbers which means higher advertising rates for the Herald.
Because what the Long Time Herald Reporter and other supposedly internet savvy newspaper people apparently haven't figured out yet is that the news aggregator or blogger's post is free advertising and linkage for the publication and that the link means more traffic from potential visitors that they, in some cases, wouldn't have had otherwise. Much more, I would be willing to bet, than the numbers who read the story offsite and don't bother to visit the Herald or the New Times or the Sun-Sentinel ever again that day.
Having said that, I do not support posting a story or article in its entirety, primarily because of how much space it can take up on a blog. Yes, I've done it and was called on the carpet by Random Pixels and the Herald, but still, a link is a link and I'm not quite sure why the mainstream media isn't viewing a blog or aggregation link simply as another vehicle to their product.
At this juncture I'd like to formally state that I don't have any problem with anyone who wants to reprint an SFDB post in its entirety as long as they link back to SFDB. The way I see it, the more exposure, the better.
Makes sense to me.
-image via blogihub
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12 comments:
I don't think you ever have to worry about anyone copying and pasting any of your posts in entirety.
I can always count on what I write to go completely over the head of at least one person.
Congrats, anon. You are the one.
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This is a problem when the plagiarist offender is getting higher search engine rankings than the original publication .... if you are using my content in its entirety and someone finds it on your site before mine, I'm not going to be happy with that.
I say plagiarist because in academe, this kind of thing would never fly. It shouldn't fly in journalism or online publications either. The rule in academe is to quote a modest amount and then point to the source.
In any case, the whole game changes when there is search engine ranking and advertising involved.
Also, HuffPo doesn't pay its bloggers. That is SO incredibly wrong in the blogging and professional writing industry in general.
Also, a site that claims to be all about original journalism shouldn't be doing this. For pete's sake, I'm a total soft journalist writing about travel, pirates and drinks, and even I NEVER steal from someone else. Like I can't make a phone call to a source myself instead of quoting something from the Herald? I have never, ever done that and again, I don't write about politics or tough subjects. How can I even trust that reporter from the Herald is quoting correctly? What? My lazy ass can't go to sources directly? I can see why Random Pixels was bothered by this.
Good lord, what makes a site/blog great is *ORIGINAL* content. HuffPo is just diluting the internet. Ok so you're a damn aggregator of local content. Then I'll just read the Herald directly, thank you.
Seriously, like we *need* another aggregator-cum-newspaper about Miami? What are they contributing to the blogosphere here that our current local blogs of hard working investigators, journalists, citizen journalists and others aren't already doing and haven't already been doing?
One more thing: South Florida Daily Blog is a perfect example of ethical quoting. Rick only quotes portions of articles and then links to the original, therefore providing a great reader's digest and a huge service to readers with tired eye balls. This is how it should be.
I once had a Russian website quote my entire Miami River Tour article on Miami Beach 411 in its entirety -- fully translated and with ALL my photos -- claiming it as original content. That is just so wrong even with a link back to 411, which we demanded.
It just says something about society that doesn't respect intellectual property of individuals. This wouldn't bother me so much if Huffington wasn't profiting from the content of others who put hard work into original reporting or content.
Appreciate the comments, Maria.
I think the unpaid bloggers issue is one totally left for another discussion so that's what I'm going to do.
The HuffPo does link back to the source in their stories. Except for their opinion and editorial pieces, I think they've been pretty upfront about the fact that they're news aggregators and not in the business of writing their own content.
Non-attribution is wrong in any form, in my opinion, whether it's a video or a paragraph or two of content. But I haven't seen or heard anyone making those allegations towards the Huffington Post in this discussion.
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As a follow up, I can't help to make the comparison of what the HuffPo and the MNT's Riptide blog are doing to what SotP was doing 6 years ago. I think I enjoy Riptide so much because it resembles SotP on steroids. More writers. More content.
And not that much different from the HuffPo's news aggregation when you think about it.
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If they spread it around, examining several articles to create a NEW article, that's one thing. Linking back to a single source and them simply paraphrasing the original article in its entirety while adding little or no new content is simply plagiarism, period. It didn't float for school essays, and it doesn't float for HuffPost either. When you've got the story, you might click the link, but once you discover that it's the SAME STORY, you move on. Definitely lessens the exposure, because you close and move on.
I'd agree, C.L.J. if they weren't linking back or making sure that they identified the content, paraphrased or not, that they were getting elsewhere.
But they are.
"When you've got the story, you might click the link, but once you discover that it's the SAME STORY, you move on."
And maybe "move on" to other content at that site. That's a visitor that the site may not have had that they got because of the HuffPo link, which is my point.
Plagiarism certainly isn't acceptable for essays...that's why we used footnotes which are today's links.
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It's not about links, Rick.
It's about Huffington Post being based on a business model that relies on cut and paste newspaper stories for a majority of its content. We're not talking about using a Herald story to explore a different angle of the story. We're talking about wholesale theft of entire sections of a story. All day, every day.
A staff of two gets up early in the morning and cherry picks the best Herald stories, and posts them on the Huffington Post..often without even bothering to rewrite them to make them appear a just little different from the original. That's called plagiarism. It's a practice that gets people fired from newspapers.
If you read my entire post, I cited examples of two HuffPost stories that were essentially carbon copies of the Herald stories.
Every newspaper and news site relies on information gleaned from online sources...but not to the extent that HuffPost does.
Everyone's entitled to their opinion. But if you were the person in charge of of accounts payable at the Herald, you might have a slightly different opinion.
But your opinion is just that - an opinion. You have zero journalism experience and therefore you have no business lecturing the Herald on how they should handle their intellectual property.
And here's something I didn't mention in my post: Janie Campbell, the "founding editor" of HuffPost Miami, came from NBC Miami...where plagiarism was also rampant.
(By the way, I noticed you mentioned that cockamamie piece Kyle at New Times wrote. Kyle does the same thing HuffPost does....all day long, 5 days a week. I may be addressing that in a future post including his mistaken assertion that no one reads Herald blogs.)
Bill...I think a lot of bloggers opine on a lot of things that they aren't experts on such as county budgets, police conduct, and political matters.
I'm not "lecturing the Herald on how they should handle their intellectual property," as you say, I'm addressing the comments of one anonymous Herald reporter who apparently hasn't spent a lot of time in the blogosphere or reading the HuffPo for the last three years.
Kyle will be so excited that you have put your cross sights on him.
Enjoy your holidays, Bill.
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Honestly, I feel bad for any person hired simply to take stories and change words around. That sounds like a horribly unfulfilling job. Maybe they get to do something more creative alongside that, though, to make up for it. Like write stories. I hope so.
Personally, I don't write anything that anyone would post elsewhere but my photos get re-posted quite a bit. It never bothers me unless they don't attribute or link. And that happens, which is why I embed watermarks on the images along with stamping the EXIF data.
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