I don't usually get upset when people nick things off this Blog, but the very least they can do is put them into their own words. So today I nominate the Londoner's Diary in the Evening Standard for the Guido Fawkes Press Plagiarist of the Week Award. Spot the similarity between this and what I posted a couple of days ago about George Galloway's public meetings..."George Galloway gives the impression that he is abanding showbiz trivia by going on a series of "public meetings" to reach out to the downtrodden. Up to a point. These public meetings are £15 a head affairs for which the Respect MP will be paid £1,000-£2,000 a time."
Would anyone like to suggest a suitable punishment? I think a small invoice in the post is called for at the very least, don't you?
12 comments:
Absolutely, along with a nice correction / apology and link to your blog, methinks.
Erm... That's the Guido Fawkes, Recess Monkey and Tim Worstall Press Plagiarist Award.
:)
R. Monkey Esq.
I don't get this constant, self-important whinging by bloggers about the fact they aren't credited for the stories they break. It's called news. When you report it expect it to be reported elsewhere. Does your newspaper give the precise source (other paper/wire/TV) where so many of the stories it runs were first reported? Of course not. Why should your blog be any different?
This is how it works. Get over it.
here speaks the true voice of a lazy journalist. Self important whingeing. Hmmm. Let me think. That wouldn't apply to journalists at all, would it?
I don't get very excited about these things ebcause mostly a journalist will email or ring. The truth is, that journalists get paid for doing original research, not copying other people's stuff. But then of course, you may be different, anonymous.
Iain, try to look more kindly on it. Surely you can envisage the moment when you can call and Editor and have a conversation in which it becomes patently obvious that he should be paying you for his Diary column rather than the numpty who just nicks your work.
Oh and by the way, if I hear of you writing a Diary column after this excellent advice, I shall be coming after you for my cut!!
I have had lunch in the last week with a couple of diarists.
The problem is tricky for them since they find the output of blog gossipers irresistable. To be fair, both offered to pay for tips, but that doesn't work for me - if Guido was in it for the money, he would become a journalist. (Also I couldn't be arsed to call them).
Shaming may work, but some diarists are incorrigable, also some do, I now realise, come up with the same ideas that don't get published till the next day.
Not sure how to stop it, I could do naming and shaming once or twice a week.
Also blog-readers do see it as self-important whinging. My new tactic is to email the guilty and explain my need for fine Margaux, if they comply, no more is said, if they don't shaming for a second offence is in order.
When I heard George Galloway going on about his public speaking tours, I had come to the conclusion myself that these were going to be ticketed, money-making events. When I then read the story I didn't immediately assume someone had tapped into my thoughts!
I'm prepared to believe that there are often cases of out-and-out plagiairism, but more often there are just stories that are out there to be freely reported on by whoever wants to write them. The person who happens to write them first can't hold a monopoly on them.
Iain,
I am not a journalist. I'm just fed uplistening to whining.
You don't *have* to uplisten, you know.
What you really need to worry about is when people start nicking things from your blog to quote back at you if you ever stand again for a constituency seat!!
Suitable punishment - listening to you read the "Wit and Wisdom of Tony Banks" from start to finish!
I think you should be ashamed of yourself for allowing your prose to stoop to such levels that it could appear in the evil standard unaltered.
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