Should this be interpreted as a red flag ...

You turned my word, "original," into plagiarize.

Excellent work.

 

Precisely.

 

If you're writing it off of copyrighted broadcasts, it is Plagiarized.

If you want to write an original game story, it's simple: Cover. The. Game.

 

I truly want to let this go, so I'll give my final word.

If Writer A listens to a game on the radio or watches it on TV to generally find out how it went down, then looks up the stats on the web or whatever (or gets them from AP) and takes a call or faxed stats or whatever from the SID and writes, factually, what happened in the game, but with his or her own insight and analysis and puts his or her name on it without a dateline, there's not a damn thing anybody -- radio station, TV station, whatever -- can do to stop you. You put a "material from the Associated Press was used in this report" disclaimer on the bottom, and that's that.

You can't plagiarize "facts." You can't plagiarize that "Joe Jones scored the winning touchdown with 12 seconds remaining on a 10-yard run." I'm not sure what, exactly, you'd "life" from a radio broadcast. You're not going to lift audio play-by-play and stick it into a game story.

Again: Cover. The. Game. is great unless you're a 20,000 circulation paper trying to keep its head above water and at the same time give readers something different than what they can get from anywhere else.

We don't have to agree on this and won't. We can debate the ethics. But -- and I guess this is my opinion -- I think you're flat wrong about the legal issues.

 

Bullshit.

Being there as opposed to watching on TV gives you opportunity at quotes, but a poorer vantage point to see everything going on (PGA golf the best example of this).

Those are the ONLY differences.

Plagiarize. LOFL.

This word doesn't mean what you think it means.

 

I don't think you're lifting if you watch TV and tell the story. It's sad, but it's not lifting.

I'm seeing some quotes in newspapers attributed thusly: "...Quarterback Joe Schmoe told ABC after the game."

That seems to be the right thing to do.

 

You don't happen to work for a paper that is often criticized (and that's putting it kindly) on this board with the initials MDJ, do you? No, wait. Don't answer that. I don't want to get the thread locked or anything.

 

i think direct quotes are black-and-white: you've got to attribute.

However, what if it's a quote from a huge media gaggle that goes out on a half-dozen wires, TV feeds and newspapers? That's a grayer area.

 

The 20,000-circulation paper isn't dumping beat coverage because it's trying to keep its head above water. It's dumping beat coverage because Mr. Publisher wants another Mercedes in his garage.

If the 20,000-circulation paper wants to act big league and cover a team, it should cover the team.
Otherwise, it is perpetrating a fraud on its readers.

 

I'm with Starman on this. I know there are instances when you have to rely on information gathered from other media. Personally, I wouldn't include game coverage in that category. If you're writing a column from afar about Ozzie Guillen calling Mariotti a fag, yeah, you're going to have to get some information from other media sources. But writing a game story while listening to a broadcast (or  following a webcast) almost certainly violates someone's copyright.   Hence, the disclaimer Starman referenced.  Not only that, but it's risky, particularly in the case of radio, where you can't personally see what's happening. You're placing trust in another outlet to be correct, and if you do it often enough, it will burn you. Part of the reason the paper pays for AP service, presumably, is to cover events when the paper can't be there.

As for whether this is a red flag, well, I'm less convicted on that. I mean, newspaper companies are, with noted exceptions, notoriously cheap. Nothing new about that. And, while I'm all for having coverage that is as comprehensive as possible, if the paper decides it must cut corners, I can see the logic of favoring local preps over college (in particular, anything below Division I) and pro coverage. Most of the players on those teams aren't going to be from your coverage area, and like it or not, your readers are more interested in the local high school kids than they are in the imported college athletes.

Frank, that was hysterical.

Playthrough: Cut that shit about volunteering to do it on your day off right now. That's the path to being abused by your employer.

 

Go to Fenway Park during the playoffs.

Half the print media is set up in the dining room, where there are several TVs.

They watch the entire game on TV and write from that.

Are they lifting?