Stu News Editorial: Do Your Own F&#ing Work
Recluse, Wyoming (Stu News Opinion(ator))
9-18-14
I've worked in news reporting for over three years now, four if you count what got me the award in the other large market. Boy, that must have sucked that year for some people. Lately, it's getting frustrating, however.
People have told me time and again that copying is the greatest form of flattery, or that I'm a trend setter since others seem to be doing what I'm doing, but the fact of the matter is, it bothers me that those people are allowed to do that. I'm concerned that I put in long hours, only to have my work posted on another local site and receive no credit. That's all I hear about, my work getting credit by someone else, who didn't visit the crash scene, or take the time to go get the pictures. A lot of people seem to turn to me for breaking news, I figure, because I'm good at it. There is a reason I'm good at it. I put work into it, even with limited resources. I also have access to a few things, I know damn well nobody else does. There have been several of my news stories lifted simply because they can be.
An example was a vehicle-versus-pedestrian accident I practically witnessed right after the fact on a street very close to the radio station. You may recall this story. A guy on a bike didn't stop coming down the street and was hit by a vehicle. He was transported to the hospital with injuries, and the cops were there taking pictures of the scene. I got pictures and did much of the preliminary work on it. There were details in my article about the scene that only I would have known, and I don't believe the PD would have shared them with other media outlets. The newspaper didn't copy it; only one other media outlet did.
Lo and behold, the same story is posted on another site the next morning, with details only I would have had from the scene.
Another example... right after a councilman resigned, since our studios are there in town, I was able to go right to them, type the story, publish the audio, and call it good. No more than half an hour later, the same story, almost verbatim, was published on another site and was credited to someone who wasn't at the meeting. If I recall correctly, it was a webmaster who wrote the story. But come on, the same story nearly verbatim with words I used, including the kicker... "embattled".
Yet I get accused of plagiarism.
This is another example of me putting in the work and someone else receiving the credit.
If you wanted to have the story, type it in your own damn words. Put the audio in the article, and try not to write my article as your own. Simple solution. Did I write a nasty accusatory letter where I threatened legal action rather than have my poor reporter suffer? No. I did not.
Again, I don't mind breaking news; I'm good at it, but an organization that has the balls to accuse me of plagiarism even though they have no clue, and then rips off my stories? Where does it end?
It doesn't, unfortunately, and there is little I can do about it.
And it has happened time and time again. I don't have an issue covering the same news in a small town, but when stories I know are in my article also appear in other articles, that's where it gets frustrating. How would Henry Ford feel if someone stole the plans to the Model T and got the credit for it? He'd be pissed.
Next, if you follow my stories consistently, you'll notice some are posted early in the morning. Obviously, I'm not up at 2 am typing news stories (even though I have in the past). I can, just as with most other content hosts, set the timestamps in advance so the articles look fresh in the morning.
Guess what happens. Now the other media start bumping their timestamps ahead of time, too.
Do they not have original ideas of their own? Am I really that much of an influence on the news of this town? If so, cool, but at the same time, come up with your own stuff.
That's all I ask, come up with your own work. Go out to scenes where news happens. Then maybe people will ask you what is happening when something breaks instead of me. I know that has to piss off a lot of other people, but again, people come to me because I have a track record of breaking the story. Whether or not I get credit for doing so is the problem.