However, the answer wasn’t to publish a new set of guidelines, institute a new plagiarism checking service or even hold a new training session. According to Poynter, the response came in the form of a short, five-question quiz designed to test how well reporters understood attribution and how they handled difficult areas.

The goal of the quiz, which you can see here, is simple: To both determine which reporters may have misconceptions about attribution and to get reporters on record as knowing right from wrong.

According to the company’s director of community engagement, Steve Buttry, this method was chosen over more traditional means of handling a rise in plagiarism issues, such as holding staff meetings, to both ensure 100% attendance and to target the attention on reporters who need the most help.

Basically, the survey is designed to address how to correctly attribute material in five different scenarios and raise a lot of gray area questions such as how to use press releases, cite competitors and so forth. The survey is required of all staff of the company and those reporters who missed just one question are required to attend a training session on plagiarism and attribution.

But is this a good approach? It’s tough to say but it certainly is a novel one and one that other media companies are likely to mimic.

My Thoughts on the Quiz

All in all, looking through the quiz and trying it for myself, it certainly seemed to be a good summary of the issues a journalist might face in this area, at least as much as can be put in a 5 question survey.

However, the multiple choice survey seemed to be a bit too easy. The range of options always had a clearly best or at least safest answer. Even if I knew almost nothing about attribution I would be able to get the right answers just by making the safest choice possible.

The other problem, and one that the company admits, is that this quiz can’t weed out bad actors and people who know better but maliciously plagiarize. How many cases of journalism plagiarism are mistakes versus malicious remain to be seen, but this might help us get a better idea, especially if more cases of plagiarism pop up at the company.

In the end, this is a novel approach. I like how easy it is to get to all of the employees and the questions themselves are pretty good, if a bit easy to answer (at least to give the “safest” answer). Mostly though, it gets the reporters thinking and reengaged on this issue and, as was pointed out, gets them on record as knowing right from wrong.

While I’m unsure what impact it will have without other action, such as plagiarism spot checking, it will definitely be a useful case study to follow, especially over the next few years to see if the problem of plagiarism arises again at the company.

Quiz Photo Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

However, it wasn’t a case of plagiarism, at least not in the traditional sense. The journalist double-checked the facts, did his own legwork, got new quotes for the story and created an entirely new story using the student’s as the inspiration. Still, the student involved said that they should have been at least credited as the source of the article and possibly receive compensation.

But according to freelancer Phillip Dolby, the student’s expectations should have been more muted. He said, “The reality is, news is an eco-system. Bigger papers up the food chain feed off those further down it – that’s just the nature of the industry. The BBC is known to get a significant proportion of its news material from local and regional print media, anyway. Should student journalists and others be heckling broadcasters for payment, too?”

(Note: I received a request from Dolby that I make it clear that he is NOT the journalist who picked up and rewrote the story in question in question, just someone who had written about the story.)

However, others disagreed with Dolby, including journalist Adam Westbrook who said, “If students are finding their work ‘poached’ by the mainstream media, they face a similar dilemma to many photographers who find images from their Flickr pages splashed over newspapers without permission. I do find that behaviour particularly deplorable – it isn’t hard for picture editors to email the owner of the image and ask for permission, and I think in some instances, we should pursue those claims, if anything, in the name of defending copyright.”

This kind of practice seems to straddle a delicate line. It isn’t copyright infringement, making Westbook’s suggestion meaningless in this case, and it even stretches the definition of plagiarism since no words were lifted and only the larger idea was copied, something that in most cases could have been independently crafted. Since journalists have based their reports on previous reports for as long as journalism has existed, it’s hard to nail down exactly what is different about this case, beyond that it was a unique story that only had one source.

For me though, the issue of whether this is copyright infringement or even plagiarism is a moot one. Journalists, when basing new work on the earlier reports of others, have a duty to report where their information came from. There are three non-plagiarism reasons for it:

1. Benefit to Readers: Readers who are interested in the story will want to visit other relevant stories. Withholding that information is a disservice to the reader, usually done to make the latter journalist seem like a more definitive source.
2. Nurtures the Ecosystem: Dolby’s “ecosystem” argument may have some merit, but without a symbiosis there won’t be an ecosystem for long. If those at the “bottom” aren’t adequately rewarded with reader attention, they won’t be around to feed those higher up.
3. Puts Focus Back on Original Content: Though there’s no shame in using information from previous reports, journalists need to focus on what they can add to the news. By acknowledging what came before, the focus is put back on what’s new.

Basically, journalism, like all crafts, needs to reward those who put in the work and those who create something new. Those who gather information, write original reports and find unique stories need to be rewarded for the craft to move forward. If everyone is content in coming in second, there will be no one going first.

Of course, there’s a lot of gray area here, especially when you start talking about things that are widely reported and it’s hard to tell where the information first came from, but in situations like this where a report clearly came from an earlier story, there’s a need for good attribution.

In short, if attribution can be done, it should be done. It’s not only the right thing to do, but the best for journalism in general.

However, I want to hear what others have to say about this particular problem. What role do journalists have in attributing prior reports? Should the student have been attributed in this case (based on what little is known)? I think there’s a lot of room for discussion here and it’s an important talk to have.

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Copyright Lawsuits Filed Against U.S. Marijuana Party, Dating Website

First off today, the controversial company Righthaven is in the news again as the company has filed two more lawsuits over alleged infringement of the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s content. According to two suits filed, The United States Marijuana Party and a dating site, find-a-sweetheart.com both copied content from the Review-Journal. Righthaven is famous for buying the rights to various Review-Journal articles and then filing suit against sites that have copied the content, usually demanding $150,000 and forfeit of the domain. This brings the total Righthaven lawsuits up to an estimated 120.

2: Gannett Not Eager To Join Righthaven’s Campaign Against Bloggers

Next up today, in other Righthaven news, even as the group appears to be picking up steam with its litigation campaign and at least one additional customer, WEHCO Media, Gannett, the owner of USA Today, said that they were not interested in following that approach. The company’s Vice President, Barbara Wall, said on a teleconference that she felt the approach was not an approach they were “Going to pursue right now.” However, she did caution that the newspaper industry needs to find ways benefit from their news and that they can not simply allow the value of their work to be taken away by others.

3: Norton Study Reveals People View Internet Copyright File Sharing as Legal

Finally today, a new study on cybercrime from Norton reveals that, despite the recent litigation campaigns and major news blitz regarding file sharing, many still believe it to be legal to share copyrighted content on the Web. Specifically, respondents 17% felt it legal to download a single music track, 14% felt the same about an album or and 15% felt it legal to download a movie without paying. Though the clear majority recognized the illegal nature of such downloads, clearly there is still a significant minority that has not been reached by the various campaigns.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 6 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Massive Judgment In World of Warcraft Copyright Infringement Case

First off today, Blizzard, the company behind the popular World of Warcraft roleplaying game, won a major judgment against Scapegaming, a company that Blizzard said was running an unauthorized World of Warcraft server. The judge in the case seemed to agree, awarding Blizzard, over $3 million in profits, a bit over $65,000 in attorney fees and $85 million in statutory damages. Scapegaming did not defend the lawsuit, which may indicate collecting the damages will prove nearly impossible.

2: Radio, RIAA: Mandatory FM Radio in Cell Phones is the Future

Next up today, though the RIAA and the National Association of Broadcasters may not agree on whether radio stations should pay royalties to labels, they are both backing a plan to require the installation of FM chips in all cell phones and other handheld electronic devices. According to the organizations, this gives consumers more legitimate choices for listening to music and aids in public safety as emergency broadcasts are sent out over FM frequencies. The Consumer Electronic Association, which represents manufacturers of such devices, opposed the idea.

3: AP Decides Not to LOL

Finally today, the Associated Press, apparently was in negotiations with Pet Holdings Inc. the owners of the I Can Has Cheezburger blog network, to bring the network into their fold. Negotiations supposedly began to break down after Ben Huh, the owner of Pet Holdings, had issues with the wording in the contract and the AP finally walked away after stating concerns about its integrity. Digital deals are becoming more common for the AP, including Yahoo, Google and the Huffington Post among others.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 6 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Like most breaking news stories coverage of it was widespread and constant. However, this story was somewhat unique in that the first images and reports came not via the major news outlets or even regular blogs, but over Twitter and TwitPic.

Specifically, it was Janis Krumswho uploaded the first images. He was a passenger on a nearby ferry that responded to the downed plane and snapped photos of the incident as the boat raced to rescue passengers.

But as the story began to spread, it seemed that the fog of war began take over. Though it was well-known Krums was the photographer, it appeared at least once on MSNBC under a different attribution. This angered many supporters of citizen journalism and caused an uproar on Flickr.

However, it it appears that the mistake was an innocent one. Though it is unclear if MSNBC corrected the attribution on their site, they did perform at least one interview with Krums and identified him as the photographer on the air. It appears that the mis-attribution on the site was an accident.

Sadly though, during a crisis, mistakes are a part of journalism. Even the best sources get facts wrong, misspeak, are at times unclear and draw wrong conclusions. Though the better journalists and news organizations work to minimize these mistakes, they are inevitable.

Though we can take steps to mitigate and prevent such errors, they can not be completely avoided. To prevent these types of problems moving forward, it is going to take a concerted effort from a lot of different groups to ensure that citizen journalists always get their due.

Fixing the Problem

The problem itself is pretty straight forward. When a news organization is trying to cover a breaking story over television, radio and the Web, as many modern companies do, it is chaos trying to get all of the facts together. The main goal of the reporter is to find out the facts of the case and report on them. Obviously there is a strong importance of correctly citing sources, but it is more important to make sure that you have the facts right, especially when you are dealing with life and death situations.

If you’ve spent time in a news room, you know well how chaotic it can be. It is easy to see how attribution could be lost and, in the case of MSNBC, I feel certain that photo credit of “MSNBC TV” is just a default credit applied to all unattributed images.

Was it sloppy reporting? Yes. Should MSNBC have done better? Yes. But was it an honest mistake made in the midst of a very chaotic day? Yes.

Fixing this problem is not going to be easy and it is and it is going to come up repeatedly as mainstream media outlets lean more on user-generated content. Preventing these types of mistakes will require both media outlets making an even more concerted effort to attribute everything correctly and users making a stronger push to mark their work.

However, the technology is working against this. The most immediate means of getting such images out are largely personal and anonymous. Twitter and TwitPic, for example, can be traced back to a username but how much information that gleans is up to the user. Also, cell phone cameras typically do not embed the needed EXIF data to identify the photographer and most do not have the ability to set such information, unlike with traditional digital cameras.

It is entirely possible that a user could snap a photo of an important event, shoot it out over Twitter, be the first to report something and have no one know who they are. Though that wasn’t what happened in this case, Krums’ name was known and widely-reported on, these new technologies clearly add new challenges to mainstream media when it comes to identifying sources of information.

How citizen journalists and mainstream media overcome these challenges will remain to be seen, but it is clear from this story that there are at least a few snags in the line.

Best Steps

Right now, there isn’t a lot that can be done to prevent these kinds of incidents, at least not from the viewpoint of a potential citizen journalist.

That being said, I would definitely take the following steps if you think you might ever catch an image CNN could want:

1. If possible add your name and information to the EXIF data of your camera. Make sure it is embedded in every image.
2. Be sure that your name and contact information are on every site you post your work.
3. When uploading an image or video, provide all of the information that you can, including location, tags, etc.
4. Try not to submit a file to too many places at once. Doing so can cause confusion as to where the source and doesn’t appear to greatly speed up how fast it is seen.
5. If you see a mis-attribution, try to correct request a correction as soon as possible. The problem is that one mistake leads to a dozen as others pick up the story.

These are basic tips but they are also things that most would-be citizen journalists are not in the habit of doing. If you one gets in the habit now, then they will be prepared when and if something major does happen and they get that prized image or video.

Conclusions

The good news in all of this is that Krums does not seem to have suffered any ill effects from this mistake. The overwhelming majority of mentions have been correctly attributed and he is widely known as the photographer. He’s given interviews on MSNBC and NBC, both of which identify him as such and most of the mentions on the Web have included his name.

Despite the mistake, Krums is getting his due credit.

In the end, it is clear that MSNBC made an error. The company and its Web team should have done better. However, throwing around blame for an obvious accident doesn’t make any sense. There is a much bigger issue about how to properly attribute citizen media going forward. This is something outside of the normal mainstream journalism paradigm and the policies they have for tracking ownership and providing credit do not neatly apply in many cases.

Solving this issue is going to take an effort by citizen journalists, news organizations and even the hardware and communications companies that help people get news and information out.

We have tools that let us capture images and video from any news story and instantly beam it out to millions of people, however, we now need to make sure those tools come with the same protections that ensure such use is attributed correctly.

After all, if we don’t know who is behind a story, not only only do we not know who to thank for getting the news out there, but we don’t know if we can trust what is being reported.

Hat Tip: Melanie Phung

According to Rosen, he was tipped off of a likely plagiarism of his work by Mark Williams, a writer for The Bulletin, a small weekly newspaper from Montgomery County in Texas.

Unable to contact the author of the story, Rosen contacted the publisher of The Bulletin, Mike Ladyman, who promised to look into the matter. However, Rosen kept digging and, after going through some of Williams’ articles over the past few years, discovered over a dozen other cases of likely plagiarism.

Rosen contacted Ladyman a second time with this news, but Ladyman brushed it off, saying that the matter was being handled. Then, contact was dropped and Ladyman failed to respond to multiple emails or calls. Concerned that The Bulletin might not exist, he obtained a copy from the area’s daily newspaper and analyzed the articles in it, finding that everything in the paper, quite literally, was a likely plagiarism.

However, it wasn’t until the story was posted on Slate a few days ago that things got very interesting. The issue exploded across the Internet, resulting in the closure of The Bulletin’s Web site.

But, in a strange twist, it was the author’s words at the end of the article that have garnered much of the press and the most controversy. It is strange to think that, though the author believes this may be, statistically, greatest plagiarism scandal in the annals of American journalism, it is his viewpoints on how this relates to the Web that have caused the most stir in some circles.

Controversial Words

It was at the end of the article, when Rosen stopped telling the story and started reflecting upon what happened that he said the following:

But perhaps the Bulletin is merely on-trend—or even ahead of its time. The Drudge Report, the Huffington Post, and Real Clear Politics have made names and money by sifting through RSS feeds; Tina Brown and Barry Diller are preparing the launch of their own news aggregator. Mike Ladyman and company may simply be bringing guerilla-style 21st-century content aggregation to 20th-century print media: publishing the Napster of newspapers.

This likening of well-respected blogs to a plagiarist newspaper has angered many. One blogger called it curmudgeonly, another hinted that linking was the antidote to plagiarism in journalism and still another called the quote a “Throwaway line in a story about an actual plagiarism case.”

Rosen, for his part, has said that the quote was intended to be “ironic” and was supposed to be a joke. However, joke or not, the quote has cast a shadow on the rest of the article in many of the conversations around the Web, something that is unfortunate considering the work and attention to detail that went into the rather stunning findings in the article itself.

Sympathy for the Author

Personally, I find it very hard to attack Rosen. Not only do I believe the quote was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but I found myself in a similar situation over two years ago with my article “The ‘New’ Plagiarism“.

In that case, I had attempted to write an article about a controversial perspective on blockquotting. The result was that many misunderstood the article as me expressing my own viewpoints, something that was not the case.

Still, the article hit the front page of Slashdot and I took quite a beating over it for several weeks. However, I blame myself for it. Not only was both the article and the headline poorly written, but I never clearly explained what I was trying to do. I can fault no one for walking away with the wrong impression.

In the end, I took my licks, learned my lesson and moved on. Today, that article would never appear on this site.

The discovery that Rosen has made is that people do not like being accused of plagiarism, even jokingly. Many bloggers follow the example of the blogs he mentions and some took it personally when he connected them with a plagiarist.

Many might consider this negative since it has taken much of the light off of the very real and very disconcerting actions of The Bulletin, but I think of it as a positive sign. After all, it shows clearly that, despite many claiming the contrary, there is still a very high value placed on original thought and on giving proper credit.

We may be in a remix culture, but clearly bloggers, on the whole, still value creativity and original authorship.

Conclusions

For me, the bottom line is simple. Currently, there is a very big plagiarism scandal in the world of print and online journalism, one where questions are not being answered and the accused seems to be determined to cover up what happened.

This needs to be addressed and dealt with quickly, my hope is that, with the pressure on The Bulletin for answers, they will eventually be forced to explain what exactly took place.

However, it appears that a misfire of a joke from the author of the report has dampened and distracted from what can be adequately described as some of the best plagiarism investigation performed in some time.

It was a foolish quip that had no place in that article, but now it risks becoming the headline to the story.

Hopefully, that joke can be put aside and the real headline can be allowed to shine more brightly. But even if it isn’t, I still think something valuable was learned.

Perhaps, in the end, the lesson runs a bit deeper than the fact there was a weekly paper in Texas with a lot of likely plagiarisms. Perhaps it can teach us something about our modern culture and what we value as an artistic and journalistic community.