Michael,

 

I'm writing today about your column on the aggregation scandal at the Hartford Courant.

 

Would it be impolite to note that the issue of aggregation and non-attribution at the Courant was noted by Romenesko in the last few days, with links to the Courant here: Courant Reviews Aggregation Policy and also here: Courant Apologizes For Plagiarism?

 

Also, that it was covered by the Society for Professional Journalism and by Editor & Publisher? All of this prior to your coverage? I'd say it is fair, but irrelevant. Your piece does a good job of covering the story and providing additional information that the other coverage did not.

 

Your piece was original thinking. Compare that to this report in Nieman: New York Post prohibits crediting blogs for scoops. Or, on a more local level, your readers may want to actually examine a key discussion this week about this issue that you allude to, but did not link to, here it is at WindyCitizen.

 

In your post, you reported that M. G. Lord “felt violated” by learning that a book she was reviewing ripped off her earlier writing without attribution. Exactly. Journalists are guilty of violating other writers work, as happened at the Courant and the New York Post. We could go back to the election and to the rise of sites like Gawker and the Drudge Report and find more examples of this happening. It happened this spring when the Reader called out the Huffington Post.

 

On-line writers want respect. They are feeling violated by the ethics of newspapers and older technology media such as television and radio. Meanwhile, newspapers and the Associated Press are crying foul that bloggers are using their material too.

 

While you report to your readers that “among journalists these days, feelings are running particularly high about appropriation” you also note that it is “chatter” among those of us on-line, your words indicating our contribution to the discussion being of less value than those of journalists.

 

To put this into perspective, I'll assume that you've been brushed off by people because the Reader is an alternative newspaper, not a “real” newspaper like the Chicago Tribune or the Chicago Sun-Times.

 

We're parcing words here in a discussion that matters a lot to the people involved, but has little interest to most readers. So, I'll try to put this into perspective for the average reader.

 

What the AP plans will have a chilling effect on the development of more local sites because of the threat to them of being sued. And the ethics of professional journalists are also having a chilling effect on coverage of hyper local issues because they do not want to attribute to the on-line community, due to journalism ethics developed early in the 20^th Century and also their competitive nature.

 

For journalism to move forward, it must recognize when outstanding work produces news that they pickup. Attribution is good for everyone. Stealing stuff or packaging it so its benefits fall to you (Hello Huffington Pest) is bad.

 

Do you want to reply to Lou personally? Send your letters, with at least 50 words describing why you hate the Huffington Post to LouGrant70 (at) yahoo (dot) com.