Is Broadcast Journalism Mostly Plagiarism? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Willravel · 05-27-2009, 04:47 PM

Quote:

A newspaper reporter would be fired or suspended for something TV and radio reporters do quite often.

Print journalists consider it plagiarism. Broadcasters call it a "rewrite."

Here's how it works in nearly every news market in the country. Print reporters do research and interviews for a story that ends up being about 800 words or so. Broadcasters rewrite and condense the paper's story to around 50 words - sometimes adding their own audio or video - then present it as their own.

In the past few years, Seattle radio and TV stations have gotten better about telling you if a story they're airing is from a local newspaper. Better, but original print and online stories are still broadcast without attribution.

A recent example is a story Levi Pulkkinen did for the Seattlepi.com: Assaults, disturbances up aboard Metro buses. Pulkkinen crunched data he received from Metro following a public records request. That took some time and effort. All of the local TV stations used his story in the morning, and three of them credited the online P-I. By the evening broadcasts, local stations added video of people boarding Metro buses and only one station attributed the information to the P-I.

Maybe this is no big deal. Maybe viewers and readers don't care where stories come from. Ken Robertson does.

Robertson is executive editor of the Tri-City Herald. He says he's tracked dozens of stories broadcasters "ripped off" from his newspaper.

Ken Robertson"Broadcasters are used to this 'we talk and it's gone' mentality, and they get into a habit of taking short cuts," Robertson says.

If the information is common knowledge that a reporter can get from dozens of sources, that's one thing. If broadcasters get information from a newspaper, he says it needs to be attributed. That sounds like a reasonable request.

It's a request he's been making for several decades.

Robertson started at the Tri-City Herald in 1976. He wrote the newsroom's first policy and ethics manual about 20 years ago after one of their staffers "lifted" information from a Seattle newspaper story, and senior reporter took information from an LA Times column.

He's also written a couple of editorials on the issue. One about a trial every media outlet in central Washington reported, he says, by "grabbing" the Herald's exclusive coverage. And when his repeated calls and conversations with broadcasters in his area seemed to "fall on deaf ears" he wrote another editorial a month ago - A capital crime in newspapers, a capital idea in broadcast.

Robertson says one of the worst offenders in the Tri-Cities is KONA radio.

Dennis ShannonKONA's News Director Dennis Shannon says several months ago, someone on his staff pulled a story from the Herald's web site and read the information without attribution. He admits that shouldn't have happened.

Shannon wanted to explain the mistake to The Herald's editors, but he says they haven't responded to his phone calls.

As a policy, Shannon says they do credit The Herald and two other area newspapers whenever KONA uses their stories.

Shannon also says in the past KONA has used information from The Herald, though not direct quotes. If rewriting information constitutes plagiarism, "then we have a problem," he says.

Do we have a problem? As a news consumer, do you care where stations or papers get their stories?

Either way, Robertson says the solution is simple. "Just credit the newspaper and we'd have no complaint," he says.

Broadcast plagiarism

I'd never really thought about this before, but it makes a lot of sense. Shouldn't the TV stations be getting permission from the actual journalists in order to use their work? Shouldn't this be the solution to saving print media?

genuinegirly · 05-27-2009, 04:58 PM

When print media disappears (it will), other media outlets will either have terrible-quality news reporting or they will hire journalists. I hope it's the latter - I'm sick of hearing newscasters quote blogs.

roachboy · 05-28-2009, 06:12 AM

there op opens onto two basic directions

1.) there's a kind of interesting question floating around just below the surface here concerning what exactly plagiarism is.
i don't think it's as obvious as you might imagine it to be.
against a simplistic understanding of the notion, i'll just paste up a quote that i have seen plagiarized again and again, and in some quite famous contexts:

Quote:

Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It holds tight an author’s phrase, uses his expressions, eliminates a false idea, and replaces it with just the right idea.

– Comte de Lautréamont (Isidore Ducasse), Poésies II (1870)(S.H. transl.)

now in academic-land, the notion of plagiarism is tied to three main factors:

1. it is a disciplinary notion advanced on undergraduates to cut them off from simply taking other people's work and foisting it off as their own---but this is context-contigent--the rationale is generally advanced as following from the educational process, that it is important to get students to work on their information organization/processing/critical thinking skills. as a functional thing in that context, i don't have a problem with the stricture. but that has nothing to do with principle.

2. within academic writing, the rationale is usually has something to do with the "republic of letters" and other such enlightenment bromides, but what it seems to me is really at the center of it is (a) symbolic capital accumulation in the context of a gift economy (no-one makes a whole lot of money at academic writing until you hit a considerable degree of celebrity--celebrity is contingent on the prior accumulation of symbolic capital)---so (b) professional hierarchies and (c) private property claims---which have everything to do with (d) the orientation of anglo-saxon copyright/intellectual property law.

the other main dimension of such claims has to do with transparency of information--by revealing the sources, you open up the argument to checking by other researchers. this would be the up side in principle of this property regime...in general, though, footnotes operate as maps for other researchers, time-saving devices, filters on information which provide heuristics for defining relevance....property claims seemingly do not extend to these maps of citations....so the collage which research is based on is not itself part of the property that is the research.

but you could argue that research is nothing but collage. particularly in the humanities. i have no problem with collage--at all--in fact i quite like it as a formal device. existing copyright law is entirely at cross-purposes with collage.

where exactly is the line between repetition and plagiarism?

the reason i outlined the two situations above was basically to claim that this line is entirely conventional, proper to particular communities. it leans on functionalities--be they relative to others (students) or to communities themselves (accumulation of symbolic capital, hierarchy formation, etc.)

if you think about it, though, we think, speak, act and write through collage continually. we steal continually, we appropriate continually. invention comes through the process of stealing. copyright law is therefore debilitating, imposing a logic of objects onto processes of creative work.

that's what i take the lautreamont quote to be saying.

(b) following on this, one can turn back to the other part of the op. if the notion of plagiarism is function-based rather than principle-based, what the op seems to me to be about is really the reliability of information in broadcast media.

but is the question of plagiarism the best way to get at this?

i'm thinking about this....maybe more later.

Glory's Sun · 05-28-2009, 06:20 AM

original.jpg

shakran · 05-28-2009, 12:03 PM

Oh, where to begin.

I think it's piss poor journalism to write any news story solely relying on other journalistic institutions for your information. But, it's not plagiarism.

Plagiarism would be copying someone's actual writing and claiming it as your own thoughts. That's not going to happen on television very often, because even if we wanted to do it, newspaper writing style is so completely different from television writing style that a word-for-word newspaper article would be stilted, boring, and unwatchable on television. Such direct plagiarism is far more likely to be seen in academic papers, internet discussion forums, or, in fact, newspapers. Writers for papers nationwide, from backwater rags like the Honolulu Star bulletin all the way up to the New York Times have been found to have plagiarized passages, or sometimes entire articles. With the emergence of Wikipedia, such plagiarism has become somewhat more commonplace.

As for taking facts from a news article and repeating them in one's own work. Well, you yourself do that, Will, every time you bring up a fact in one of your political threads. Is there anything ethically wrong with repeating information that you obtained from media? I would say no, there isn't. After all, none of us expect you to call the White House and ask them who the president is every time you mention President Obama. Once news is out there, it's out there, and facts are not copyrightable - only the way in which the facts are presented can be copyrighted. Otherwise I could copyright the fact that Obama is president, and then sue anyone who mentions that fact. So no, using facts is not unethical, with one caveat.

If you don't do the research yourself, you stand the risk of the original media source being wrong, and therefore you too will be spreading false information. A glaring example is the time the Onion ran a story which claimed that the US Congress was planning to strike unless we built them a capitol building with a retractable dome. Readers in the US knew the Onion is satire, and was making fun of the ridiculous demands of baseball teams for new stadiums, but the Chinese media thought the Onion was a real paper, and ran the story as actual news.

Willravel · 05-28-2009, 12:17 PM

I'm glad you saw this thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

I think it's piss poor journalism to write any news story solely relying on other journalistic institutions for your information. But, it's not plagiarism.

Plagiarism would be copying someone's actual writing and claiming it as your own thoughts. That's not going to happen on television very often, because even if we wanted to do it, newspaper writing style is so completely different from television writing style that a word-for-word newspaper article would be stilted, boring, and unwatchable on television. Such direct plagiarism is far more likely to be seen in academic papers, internet discussion forums, or, in fact, newspapers. Writers for papers nationwide, from backwater rags like the Honolulu Star bulletin all the way up to the New York Times have been found to have plagiarized passages, or sometimes entire articles. With the emergence of Wikipedia, such plagiarism has become somewhat more commonplace.

As for taking facts from a news article and repeating them in one's own work. Well, you yourself do that, Will, every time you bring up a fact in one of your political threads. Is there anything ethically wrong with repeating information that you obtained from media? I would say no, there isn't. After all, none of us expect you to call the White House and ask them who the president is every time you mention President Obama. Once news is out there, it's out there, and facts are not copyrightable - only the way in which the facts are presented can be copyrighted. Otherwise I could copyright the fact that Obama is president, and then sue anyone who mentions that fact. So no, using facts is not unethical, with one caveat.

Are you sure you're not confusing plagiarism with copyright infringement?

Let me give you a different context. Let's say that a researcher performs a study and discovers that, say, bananas are linked to autism. He publishes his findings in his college paper or a lesser known medical journal. I, an author for the New England Journal of Medicine, notice this story, and then publish the results of the study without using the exact phrasing from the original researcher and without proper citation. While I've not violated copyright, I am guilty of plagiarism. Is this hypothetical example any different than a newspaper or magazine doing all the footwork and a network news outlet broadcasting the results without citing the original work?

shakran · 05-28-2009, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

I'm glad you saw this thread.

Saw it almost as soon as you posted, but lacked the time to form a semi-coherent response

Quote:

Are you sure you're not confusing plagiarism with copyright infringement?

Well, since we're talking about my career. . Yeah, reasonably sure

Quote:

Let me give you a different context. Let's say that a researcher performs a study and discovers that, say, bananas are linked to autism. He publishes his findings in his college paper or a lesser known medical journal. I, an author for the New England Journal of Medicine, notice this story, and then publish the results of the study without using the exact phrasing from the original researcher and without proper citation.

Clarify. Do you call up the researcher and interview him, or do you just publish the information? If you call him up and interview him (and preferably his colleagues to see if he's a nut) then you're fine. If you don't, then you aren't plagiarizing, but you are setting yourself up to lose public trust. You cite the source not to avoid plagiarism charges, but so that when it turns out that bananas aren't linked to autism, you can say "well that's what this guy said, and I was just reporting what he said." (that, of course, brings a whole new set of issues that are well beyond the scope of this thread)

Quote:

While I've not violated copyright, I am guilty of plagiarism. Is this hypothetical example any different than a newspaper or magazine doing all the footwork and a network news outlet broadcasting the results without citing the original work?

well, you're not guilty of plagiarism. plagiarism is the "use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author" (Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary). In order to plagiarize, you have to write exactly what he wrote, or write what he wrote while changing a few words to various synonyms. In your example, you did not use the phrasing from the original researcher - you simply published an article saying something along the lines of "a new study links bananas to autism, etc" In your example, you are guilty of piss poor journalism, and I would go so far as to say of being an idiot, because only an idiot would take such an unsubstantiated claim as fact without checking into it, but you are not guilty of plagiarism.

Willravel · 05-28-2009, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

Well, since we're talking about my career. . Yeah, reasonably sure

Yeah, at this point it's more about asking for clarification on my part.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

Clarify. Do you call up the researcher and interview him, or do you just publish the information? If you call him up and interview him (and preferably his colleagues to see if he's a nut) then you're fine. If you don't, then you aren't plagiarizing, but you are setting yourself up to lose public trust. You cite the source not to avoid plagiarism charges, but so that when it turns out that bananas aren't linked to autism, you can say "well that's what this guy said, and I was just reporting what he said." (that, of course, brings a whole new set of issues that are well beyond the scope of this thread)

So it's CYA, not stealing? Doesn't it *seem* like stealing, though? What happens when people start quoting the Journal instead of the researcher when they move on to further studies or when they yank bananas from their shelves? Can't the original author of the work get lost in the dust? Where's his piece of the pie for doing all the work?

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

well, you're not guilty of plagiarism. plagiarism is the "use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author" (Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary). In order to plagiarize, you have to write exactly what he wrote, or write what he wrote while changing a few words to various synonyms. In your example, you did not use the phrasing from the original researcher - you simply published an article saying something along the lines of "a new study links bananas to autism, etc" In your example, you are guilty of piss poor journalism, and I would go so far as to say of being an idiot, because only an idiot would take such an unsubstantiated claim as fact without checking into it, but you are not guilty of plagiarism.

So you're saying broadcast journalism has a lot of idiots?

roachboy · 05-28-2009, 01:12 PM

Quote:

In your example, you are guilty of piss poor journalism, and I would go so far as to say of being an idiot, because only an idiot would take such an unsubstantiated claim as fact without checking into it, but you are not guilty of plagiarism.

this actually gets to one of the points i was trying to make earlier.
why is plagiarism a way to get to questions of the quality of information and/or journalism?
what do you assume plagiarism to actually be?
what does it's occurance imply?

keep in mind that this is a genre-specific and function-specific notion: it has no particular meaning in some contexts. for example. you could say that many of ezra pound's cantos are plagiarised if you wanted to because the pieces are basically collages.
what does that fact say about the cantos?
well, it says something obvious about method, but nothing---at all----about the pieces themselves. you could, i suppose, say that pound was a hack because of the procedure--but you'd probably be laughed at.
and this is just the tip of a considerable and seemingly growing field of work that takes re-appropriation/plunder as it's point of departure.
the point of mentioning a rather old book of poetry here is simply to reinforce the claim that plagiarism is not some universal, unequivocal notion.

so if the claim of plagiarism is being made, it has to be made in a context that you could plausibly imagine dominated by a community that enforced the notion of plagiarism, usually for pretty specific social reasons.

is television journalism such a community?

i don't think so---but this says nothing about the quality of journalism--it simply says that the question of quality of journalism is about something else, and the standards for evaluating it lay elsewhere.

for example, there's not a whole lot of emphasis on individual authorship in a broadcast news context as a guarantor of the integrity of the piece, as there is supposed to be in an academic research publication context. there just isn't.

it's really quite strange, this tack. the more i think about it, the less i think it does or says.
as far as i think you can go with it is that television infotainment is not necessarily reliable.
i would have thought that an a priori.

so...what are we doing again?

[[edit: sorry about all the moving around of sentences---this became more complicated to organize than i expected when i started]]

genuinegirly · 05-28-2009, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

...Where's his piece of the pie for doing all the work?

If you're talking about a scientific study, the researcher received his piece of pie before he completed the work. Usually the way it works is one applies for grants, which offer them funding. In order to obtain future grants, one must frequently publish their research. No rational-minded research scientist expects their name to be quoted every time their research is mentioned in a non-academic setting. They expect someone to mention the journal wherein it was published, or the institution where the research took place.

shakran · 05-28-2009, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

Doesn't it *seem* like stealing, though?

Are you stealing when you say that the sky is blue? Someone discovered that fact before you knew it. Should you not attribute?

Now, in your example, we should attribute because that is part of the story. If bananas were found to be linked to autism it would be a very big deal, and any journo worth anything would want an on-camera interview with the guy that discovered it.

Quote:

What happens when people start quoting the Journal instead of the researcher when they move on to further studies or when they yank bananas from their shelves?

You keep changing the premise. Is it an attempt to put us off balance, or is it that you're not really sure where you're coming from here? Either the hypothetical journalist quoted the banana scientist's research paper directly without citing it (thereby what? Claiming that the journalist himself discovered the link?), or just reported what it said.

Quote:

Can't the original author of the work get lost in the dust? Where's his piece of the pie for doing all the work?

Scientific acclaim. But in your example the original author is kind of stupid. If you have a groundbreaking discovery, you report it in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, not the school newspaper. That right there would make my antenna go up. Why isn't he putting this up for peer review? Why is he posting it in a college newspaper next to the meandering anti-professor rant from the freshman columnist?

Your example would probably never be published, because we would look into the story, and most likely figure out that the "scientist" was full of shit (and probably a sophomore fratboy trying to pull a prank).

You seem to be suggesting that broadcast journalists make a habit of leafing through college newspapers looking for stories to steal. That's silly to the point of absurdity.

You also seem to be suggesting that we comb real newspapers and lift the article word for word. That is also silly. We don't. IF the newspaper scoops us on something, we still make the story our own. You even said in the beginning that we shoot our own video, and get our own interviews. At that point, we are reporting on the facts, which we have verified independently of the newspaper, and are presenting it in an entirely different medium and style from the newspaper's version. If it's a big story, we (at least, every newsroom I've ever been in) mention that the whatever paper broke the story. If it's a story about the VFW's Memorial Day preparations, we don't. And the newspaper doesn't care, either.

there are a LOT of problems with my industry, but in my entire career I have never seen anyone take an article from the newspaper and just sit in front of the camera reading it word for word. I would challenge you to give me an example when this has happened, with the caveat that it must be from an actual television station. College kids playing at the community access studios do not count

Cynthetiq · 05-28-2009, 01:22 PM

I'd like to add that broadcast is very different than print, not just the dull reading word for word, which does happen here in NYC's NY1 channel every morning some talking head picks up the daily news prints and reads articles word for word, showing the paper and sometimes a close up of the print.

I believe that CSPAN has something like that in the weekends as well.

With respect to copyright, well that's hard to tackle because it's very different than rights and permissions. I'd be surprised if NY1 or CSPAN didn't get some cover your ass letter to give them the permission to use the text or words on their shows.

Broadcast has many more locks in place for rights and permissions, but that's a totally different subject.

shakran · 05-28-2009, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

I'd like to add that broadcast is very different than print, not just the dull reading word for word, which does happen here in NYC's NY1 channel every morning some talking head picks up the daily news prints and reads articles word for word, showing the paper and sometimes a close up of the print.

I believe that CSPAN has something like that in the weekends as well.

But that's outside of Will's example, because as you said, they are disclosing that they are getting it from the paper, and are even showing you the paper they're getting it from. He seems to think that we pretend we are the original reporters while reading newspaper articles word for word, and that just doesn't happen.

Plus, I am talking about network and local network affiliate-level news organizations. CSPAN is a very different concept from what most of us do, and NY1 is a local cable news channel, which also is not traditional mainstream broadcast news.

Cynthetiq · 05-28-2009, 01:35 PM

yes, it is, but it's different sounding as well which is what I was trying to make as a point. Maybe it's because it's a teleprompter that makes them sound more comfortable reading and not seem like they are reading, but the newprint reads, are just that, it's painful to listen to sometimes because it is them reading it to you, in the manner that is known as reading aloud versus reading a teleprompter.

I wonder if you formatted the article into the teleprompter would it have that same awkward and stilted?

I think I'm getting that point across in that paragraph.

Willravel · 05-28-2009, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by genuinegirly

If you're talking about a scientific study, the researcher received his piece of pie before he completed the work. Usually the way it works is one applies for grants, which offer them funding. In order to obtain future grants, one must frequently publish their research. No rational-minded research scientist expects their name to be quoted every time their research is mentioned in a non-academic setting. They expect someone to mention the journal wherein it was published, or the institution where the research took place.

Notoriety helps to get grants, though, just like good stories make for a good reputation as a journalist. That was my point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

You keep changing the premise. Is it an attempt to put us off balance, or is it that you're not really sure where you're coming from here? Either the hypothetical journalist quoted the banana scientist's research paper directly without citing it (thereby what? Claiming that the journalist himself discovered the link?), or just reported what it said.

I'm not 100% sure where I'm coming from on this particular subject. I'm starting to think the illustration does hold water.

I'm not talking about word-for-word, I'm talking about the story. If a newspaper reporter breaks a story about something, he should get credit when it's reported elsewhere, shouldn't he? They're getting plenty of money and ratings for that story that they just lifted (and then changed the syntax in order for it to be palatable for tv audiences).

shakran · 05-28-2009, 03:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

Notoriety helps to get grants, though, just like good stories make for a good reputation as a journalist. That was my point.

I'm not 100% sure where I'm coming from on this particular subject. I'm starting to think the illustration does hold water.

I'm not talking about word-for-word, I'm talking about the story. If a newspaper reporter breaks a story about something, he should get credit when it's reported elsewhere, shouldn't he? They're getting plenty of money and ratings for that story that they just lifted (and then changed the syntax in order for it to be palatable for tv audiences).

I already explained that in big stories broken by a newspaper, TV news tends to credit the paper. I also explained that newspapers don't really care if we find out about something through the newspaper, but then go do our own research, interview our own subjects, write our own story, and have our own reporter voice it. To flip it around, newspapers did not credit a TV station with breaking the 9/11 story. They found out about it through television because television was broadcasting it live. But they went and got the story themselves. No one at CNN bitched that a newspaper ran a story about the towers collapsing without specifying which TV reporter was the first to open her mouth about it.

Your definition of plagiarism is wrong, and therefore your entire premise is wrong.

roachboy · 05-28-2009, 03:28 PM

notoriety is too broad a category to do the work you want it to do, will. in history, for example, some of the folk with the greatest degree of notoriety were at the center of campaigns to drum them out of the profession. one of the pretexts was plagiarism---in that case, it was little more than a form of invective meant to cover over the real motives, which were personal/political. being at the center of such a thing doesn't help get grants. similarly, you could say that among "journalists" (which i put in quotes in order to extend it this far) limbaugh has a considerable degree of notoriety; other paragons of everything good about the press like geraldo rivera come to mind.

you probably mean reputation. but even there, this doesnt mean a single thing because what constructs it isn't made up of a single set of attributes. and there's no particular agreement about what constitutes reputation. there are companies that like to count the number of times a particular author is cited by others--these are marketed as an index of reputation--but the numbers take no account for the type of citation: they critical or otherwise. there are a bunch of other problems with these indices, but you get the idea.

connections is more accurate--who you're connected to, how much influence they have, etc. that gets you grants. reputation can be part of that but it isn't the same thing. nowhere near as effective.

the point is that the whole idea of plagiarism hinges on the status of an individual author--the name is supposed to function as a guarantee (hedged in by others of course)---television simply doesn't work in the same way---shakran knows way more about this than i do--but it seems that the central guarantee of accuracy in television is the sense of being-present that footage provides. contextual information typically is geared around the footage. if footage didn't serve this function, it'd be hard to imagine how fox news would be confused with an unproblematic information outlet.

05-27-2009, 04:58 PM	#2 (permalink)
genuinegirly Eat your vegetables Super Moderator Location: Arabidopsis-ville	When print media disappears (it will), other media outlets will either have terrible-quality news reporting or they will hire journalists. I hope it's the latter - I'm sick of hearing newscasters quote blogs. __________________ "Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq "violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

05-28-2009, 01:22 PM	#12 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	I'd like to add that broadcast is very different than print, not just the dull reading word for word, which does happen here in NYC's NY1 channel every morning some talking head picks up the daily news prints and reads articles word for word, showing the paper and sometimes a close up of the print. I believe that CSPAN has something like that in the weekends as well. With respect to copyright, well that's hard to tackle because it's very different than rights and permissions. I'd be surprised if NY1 or CSPAN didn't get some cover your ass letter to give them the permission to use the text or words on their shows. Broadcast has many more locks in place for rights and permissions, but that's a totally different subject. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

05-28-2009, 01:35 PM	#14 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	yes, it is, but it's different sounding as well which is what I was trying to make as a point. Maybe it's because it's a teleprompter that makes them sound more comfortable reading and not seem like they are reading, but the newprint reads, are just that, it's painful to listen to sometimes because it is them reading it to you, in the manner that is known as reading aloud versus reading a teleprompter. I wonder if you formatted the article into the teleprompter would it have that same awkward and stilted? I think I'm getting that point across in that paragraph. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

05-28-2009, 03:28 PM	#17 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	notoriety is too broad a category to do the work you want it to do, will. in history, for example, some of the folk with the greatest degree of notoriety were at the center of campaigns to drum them out of the profession. one of the pretexts was plagiarism---in that case, it was little more than a form of invective meant to cover over the real motives, which were personal/political. being at the center of such a thing doesn't help get grants. similarly, you could say that among "journalists" (which i put in quotes in order to extend it this far) limbaugh has a considerable degree of notoriety; other paragons of everything good about the press like geraldo rivera come to mind. you probably mean reputation. but even there, this doesnt mean a single thing because what constructs it isn't made up of a single set of attributes. and there's no particular agreement about what constitutes reputation. there are companies that like to count the number of times a particular author is cited by others--these are marketed as an index of reputation--but the numbers take no account for the type of citation: they critical or otherwise. there are a bunch of other problems with these indices, but you get the idea. connections is more accurate--who you're connected to, how much influence they have, etc. that gets you grants. reputation can be part of that but it isn't the same thing. nowhere near as effective. the point is that the whole idea of plagiarism hinges on the status of an individual author--the name is supposed to function as a guarantee (hedged in by others of course)---television simply doesn't work in the same way---shakran knows way more about this than i do--but it seems that the central guarantee of accuracy in television is the sense of being-present that footage provides. contextual information typically is geared around the footage. if footage didn't serve this function, it'd be hard to imagine how fox news would be confused with an unproblematic information outlet. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

05-28-2009, 06:20 AM	#4 (permalink)
Glory's Sun Registered User	original.jpg

05-28-2009, 12:03 PM	#5 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	Oh, where to begin. I think it's piss poor journalism to write any news story solely relying on other journalistic institutions for your information. But, it's not plagiarism. Plagiarism would be copying someone's actual writing and claiming it as your own thoughts. That's not going to happen on television very often, because even if we wanted to do it, newspaper writing style is so completely different from television writing style that a word-for-word newspaper article would be stilted, boring, and unwatchable on television. Such direct plagiarism is far more likely to be seen in academic papers, internet discussion forums, or, in fact, newspapers. Writers for papers nationwide, from backwater rags like the Honolulu Star bulletin all the way up to the New York Times have been found to have plagiarized passages, or sometimes entire articles. With the emergence of Wikipedia, such plagiarism has become somewhat more commonplace. As for taking facts from a news article and repeating them in one's own work. Well, you yourself do that, Will, every time you bring up a fact in one of your political threads. Is there anything ethically wrong with repeating information that you obtained from media? I would say no, there isn't. After all, none of us expect you to call the White House and ask them who the president is every time you mention President Obama. Once news is out there, it's out there, and facts are not copyrightable - only the way in which the facts are presented can be copyrighted. Otherwise I could copyright the fact that Obama is president, and then sue anyone who mentions that fact. So no, using facts is not unethical, with one caveat. If you don't do the research yourself, you stand the risk of the original media source being wrong, and therefore you too will be spreading false information. A glaring example is the time the Onion ran a story which claimed that the US Congress was planning to strike unless we built them a capitol building with a retractable dome. Readers in the US knew the Onion is satire, and was making fun of the ridiculous demands of baseball teams for new stadiums, but the Chinese media thought the Onion was a real paper, and ran the story as actual news.