Question

I wrote a story for my paper and we sent it to another paper in our chain. Said paper hacked it down and ran it as an elongated brief, which I don't have a problem with, but they put 'staff reports' at the top and used my quotes and acted like they got them.
In the first quote shouldn't they attribute it to "I played really great," John Doe told the New York Times on Thursday.

It just seems like BS that they acted like they talked to the athlete and gathered the quotes themselves, especially when they didn't change a single thing in the story.

 

Same thing happened to me when I was at a chain, I guess in that chain it is just the policy. I don't know about yours, but it is a pretty f'd up thing to do.

 

If you run a quote from an AP story in a roundup, do you attribute all the quotes to AP?

If the paper is in your chain they can do whatever they want with it.

 

I would at least put 'staff and wire reports'.

 

I agree.

 

Our paper has a policy I don't care for when using other papers in our chain. If John Doe from Paper X writes a story we use -- including byline -- the byline we write reads:

By John Doe
Fr our paper

Then at the bottom of the article, we run a shirttail that reads: John Doe is a reporter for Paper X, a member of our chain... blah, blah, blah.

He never wrote the article "for" us, and I think we should just put the byline as:

By John Doe
Paper X

I think we should give as complete and accurate attribution to everything in our articles, including bylines. Any thoughts or preferences for bylines when using someone out of your paper (w/in your chain or not). Not that it will change our policy, just curious what some others do.

 

I think we should worry about far more important things than this. Like cuts, the erosion of standards and syndicated columnists defending making allegations without any proof.

Open your eyes. There are serious problems everywhere you look in this industry. Bylines are not among them.

 

But isn't a paper claiming work as their own when it isn't just another way of eroding credibility?

 

With fewer resources papers are using more and more other copy to fill news holes because of less employees. I know some papers here in Canada where half of their copy comes from their chain papers.
It's a small point, but it's good to have consistency and quality when dealing with something. Yes it's not a huge problem, but I know I would like to know how others deal with the issue without you getting on your soapbox.

 

A lot of my work ends up on the wire. The list of where it has been printed reads like a who's who of newspapers. But I've seen it run as "AppGrad05, News Service," "AppGrad05, home paper," and "News Service."
It doesn't bother me, as long as they're using it.

 

Well, you're not going to get a byline on a brief. That's just basic.

 

The byline is not what I am concerned about. I am concerned that they ran 8 inches of my copy and used my quotes verbatim and acted like they talked to the athletes, which they didn't.