An event organiser retorts
There’s a curious attack on Mumbrella in the diary column in today’s Media section of The Australian. Let’s take a look.
“Events organiser Mumbrella has been getting light-fingered again,” begins the item.
Firstly, did they not get the note that calling us an event organiser is not an insult?
“It likes to criticise reporting in other publications, including this one, but then wastes no time ripping off the same stories. It did it again on Friday, shamelessly helping itself to Media’s exclusive about former Ten programmer David Mott returning to TV as boss of the newly purchased Nine Perth. This follows a write-through on the changing of the guard at News Corp Australia earlier last week, based mainly on reports across News Limited and Fairfax publications without attribution. Yes, they linked to some of the stories concerned, but since when is a click-through an attribution?”
Jeez, sounds unethical, doesn’t it? Don’t you just hate it when websites and blogs rip off your work and claim it as their own.
Let’s look at how Mumbrella did it. First the opening of the Mott story:
Anyone missed the attribution there? It’s in blue because it is indeed a link.
And second, here’s the beginning of Nic Christensen’s excellent assessment of how the shenanigans at The Australian’s parent company News Corp went down:
Again, did anyone miss the attribution to Fairfax Media? Or the links?
What it does perhaps show though is that somebody at The Oz still has a different view on how the world of digital journalism works. You see, there is a new point of view, that the best way to write a piece is to give your readers as much information as possible, rather than pretend you’re the only person covering it.
In Nic’s case, above, he spent 48 hours working his own sources and wrote a comprehensive piece of analysis. And then had the lack of ego to recognise that the best quotes of the saga – “tummy compass” and “grin fucking” – came from Fairfax Media’s Tim Elliott, so he linked to that too. It’s not the traditional newspaper approach of pretending that anything outside of your own reporting might not exist, and can take some getting used to for those of a more traditional bent.
So what motivates the attack from The Oz, if not outrage at insufficient attribution? Could it be related to the fact that Dr Mumbo poked fun at The Australian’s media section last week, when he noticed that every one of the section’s four exclusives of the week related to a News Corp company? Surely nobody would be that petty, would they?
And there’s one final paragraph from The Oz:
“Fellas, we have a paywall to fund our journalism. When you steal it without making a single phone call to confirm the story yourselves, you devalue that work.”
Which does make Dr Mumbo wonder: How does The Oz know who we have or haven’t been ringing?
Dont poke at the dying dogs, they tend to nip.
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Typical navel gazing from Murdoch media.
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The problem is not that you are claiming it as your own. The problem is that your “write-through” makes it less likely that people will pay for access to the paper. A thorough attribution does not help.
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Steve: the thing is, you can’t ‘own’ an event that happens in the world. You can certainly own the opportunity to be first to report it, but other people reporting it is simply to be expected. Out-and-out plagiarism of the words of the story isn’t acceptable of course, but unfortunately, you can’t own something that happens in the world.
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Who the hell pays to read The Australian?
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Isn’t this just referencing someone else’s work, like you would do in any article or journal? If it’s been properly referenced I don’t see the problem, especially since nearly all academic journals are behind paywalls but are referenced in other journals about similar topics.
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Not a cent of my hard earned money goes to support Murdoch advocacy of voting Liberal under the guise of Journalism. When something in the OZ catches my eye I google the headline and then click on the link to get around the paywall. I recommend it.
I don’t know who wants to fund the Australian’s so called journalism but I certainly won’t.
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@Eric Johannes… If you use Chrome, a New Incognito window will do the trick and you can cutout Google altogether…
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If you build your business on free riding, you cannot get upset when the person you are free riding on has a crack at you for doing it. It is not plagiarism and it is not against the law. It is the inevitable consequence of low cost distribution on the internet and it is killing quality journalism.
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Hi Steve,
It strikes me that you may not have actually read the analysis piece The Australian claims has been plagiarised from elsewhere. Please do follow the link. When you do, you’ll see that it is writing almost entirely from Nic’s own sources and insights, but does, unlike some, link to external sources too. Please do let me know if you disagree, once you’ve actually read it.
You also misunderstand our business model if you think it is based on “free riding”. When fully staffed (we’re hiring at the moment) we employ seven journalists and two designers. I believe that is more than most of our rivals. However, we do still believe in linking to interesting content wherever we find it.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Oh let’s all cry a river of tears for Murdoch’s empire. Never have and never will pay for their ‘take’ on journalism.
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It costs a lot to break stories, as you would know, and if you can’t hold on to the story for very long the returns are lower. Of course you are not just ‘free riding’ but that is part of the model.
For the record, I did read the articles and these para got me thinking the piece was leveraged, but no doubt with lots of work and additions. It is all part of the game.
“A former CEO of Foxtel, Williams only took over as News CEO in 2011, replacing John Hartigan who was at the helm of the company for more than 10 years.”
or
“Mr Williams replaced John Hartigan in December 2011, who called time on his ten-year career as CEO the previous month.”
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Seeing as I can pretty much guess what’s on News.com.au right now based on what I saw on Reddit yesterday this is all just a bit rich.
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The Media section of The Australian is often excellent, but it is rarely objective when it comes to matters Murdoch. While this is understandable in a commercial sense, it really isn’t good journalism to ignore, underreport or whitewash stories that put your own employer in a bad light, and then attack your rivals for their alleged ethical breaches.
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lol @ Alison F using Chrome to cut out Google.
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“Which does make Dr Mumbo wonder: How does The Oz know who we have or haven’t been ringing?”
Scandalous!
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