This is a guest post provided by our friend and journalist, Chris, over at @RealWorldDCNewz. He does an outstanding job of getting information out there for people and we at ARWDC back him up on his concerns expressed below.
Last week, the DC blogosphere and Twitterverse saw some tit-for-tat action in regard to coverage of The Real World DC. Without rehashing exactly what went on (for that, you can just hop over to our friends at Vevmo.com and check out the Washington DC thread) let’s address the issue at hand: sourcing.
Much of last week’s the debate stemmed from several interlaced issues. One of these issues was the responsibility of proper sourcing in “vigilante journalism” versus “paid blogging.” A Virginia-dwelling stalker blogger was hired as a paid blogger for a media outlet in the District and reposted some information that obviously originated from other sources. The blogger, however, didn’t cite the information on the for-profit site. A back-and-forth began when the blogger was called out on the offense by more than one of the sources. After several days of finger pointing, name calling, denial, and retorts, the issue was resolved (sort of) and the problem corrected (much to the chagrin of the offending blogger).
Ultimately, it’s clear that improper sourcing had occurred (the blogger’s bosses at the for-profit site conceded this fact.
During the publicly discussed “scandal” many people commented on this issue by saying that this wasn’t serious news and that the entire situation had become out of hand or altogether didn’t matter. While this was obviously not a typical D.C. issue, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: At what point did we decide that standards would be thrown out the window?
That is to say, who should and who should not be held accountable for the information posted in the various forms of new and social media available to anybody with a computer or a smart phone?
In a perfect world, every blogger, tweeter, facebooker and so on would attribute every piece of unoriginal information, per AP Style guidelines. Unfortunately, that’s just unrealistic. But, any time a contributor receives pay for publishing information; it becomes not only an issue of best practices but also a legal one. Plagiarism is intellectual theft and getting paid to use stolen information comes with the risk of legal repercussions.
So on the issue of who had what information and who posted it (as in the case of last week’s Real World DC quarrel) the bottom line is this: If you are getting paid to blog, and you borrow information that is not part of the public domain, you must cite it. Plain and simple. Plus, it’s just plain common courtesy to do so. Anything less (whether you’re paid or not) is just as douchy as some of the stuff that goes on in and around 2000 S Street, NW.
15 comments ↓
Great article Wiggy, and thanks for the Vevmo shoutout!
Good work here ARWDC news, I was skeptical about you guys at first, but you’re blog has been both informative and entertaining.
~OPD
[...] Since the news of the Real World coming to DC broke, the online world has been abuzz with activity surrounding the collection of strangers on S street. The majority of attention has been from new media sources which face the same pressure to be first as traditional media. That rush has produced some legal, ethical, and journalistic questions that the Anti Real World DC addresses with a guest post on the Power of Sourcing. [...]
Uh-oh Real World under new management:
“Dutch TV mogul buys “Real World” producer”
http://www.reuters.com/article/televisionNews/idUSTRE56G14X20090717
I know this is slightly off topic, but as a sports blogger, i couldn’t resist. This issue of sourcing is big in the world of sports blogging too. A small website will report on something, and a larger one will report on it more expansively without attributing the story back to its original, smaller source. As blogging gets bigger than it already is, you’ll see this less and less. So whoever tried to downplay this issue by saying writing about Real World issues doesnt qualify as a “real” story is completely missing the larger point…or douchy as you so eloquently put it
Dag — Y’all take this blog sh|t seriously!
I am sorry, but an Internet connection and a free blogger.com account does not a journalist make!
BTW – I realiize it may not read this way, but I agree with the blog post.
In other words:
Getting paid by a media enitity to blog? Cite it.
Not getting paid to blog? Stop thinking you are a journalist. You are a shlub with a free blogger.com account. Stop taking yourself so seriously. But go ahead and cite it, too.
Chris, shouldn’t you mention in this post that you are the one that felt your information was stolen without being sourced? As it is written, you make yourself sound like a 3rd party looking in on the situation, when in fact you’re one-half of this “tit-for-tat.”
I have no sides in this argument, I just think there should be full disclosure.
Just gotta point out that this intra-blogger stuff is profoundly uninteresting to those of us who have lives beyond blogging.
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