So what are the rules?

I worked for a one of the titans of Sports newspapering long ago.
He had a one-sentence line for times just like this:

"Do your own fucking work."

 

Newspaper stories are not in the public domain, and linking is not the same as copying.

 

I would be all over that. It's Bush League. Jerks.

I confirm everything, even stuff that is common knowledge from another newspaper. If IU don't have a source confirming, then I attribute. But, not until months or weeks after do I just grab info and don't attribute it.

Example is recruiting. If I get beat on a commit, then i don't write like the kid has committed unless I attribute it, or I get a second hand confirmation.

Perhaps 8 weeks later, then the news becomes common knowledge and I'll report it. I also hate the "multiple outlets reporting." Just pick the first one and go with it.

This touches a button. People steal all the time, and I don't. Frustrating. Perhaps I should be a little more loose.

 

I'll play devil's advocate here. Most coaches at the major college level never, ever, ever submit to one-on-one interviews anymore. Everything is a pool quote.

That said, if you have reason to believe something WAS given one-on-one, like "I cover this beat, I've been to every fucking presser, and I don't remember Coach Jockitch saying that," it's a good idea to get with the writer and make sure it wasn't one-on-one.

I don't think the writers in question here were being jerks. I just think they were being lazy and/or assuming something they shouldn't have. It was an oversight. Doesn't make it right, obviously, but it doesn't make them monsters, either.

Now, if these writers had a long and documented history of stealing one-on-one quotes, that would be another thing.

 

Using unattributed stats/scores can be done, though it is at your own risk in terms how correct or up-to-date they are.

As for taking stats off MaxPreps, it's not taboo because that site is innately intended for public viewing, consumption and use. It's a place to go for high school stats, sort of a single reference source, like a digital dictionary or encyclopedia, and literally would not exist otherwise. And again, you use the site, and the information on it, at your own risk.

Also -- and this is key -- the statistical information on that site is usually inputted by coaches and/or team school/team representatives, anyway, so MaxPreps gets the information from precisely the same place that anybody at another outlet would.

In this sense, the information, and the site itself, is generic, in a way that bylined stories (or blogs) can never be, because, sure, stats work is produced/done by somebody.

But it is not created and/or original in any way. In that sense, authorship of any stats cannot be taken, and that's the difference.

With regard to linking, as another poster stated, that is not the same as copying without attribution. Linking, by its very nature, has some accountability and traceability built into it.

 

I've attributed things to maxpreps... the desk takes the attribution out. So be it.

 

It doesn't matter if it was a pool quote. If the coach talked to a bunch of reporters and you weren't one of them, you need to attribute the quote to someone who actually got it. Is this complicated?

 

You're wrong here. Anything said in a public forum in front of a group of reporters, into a microphone, or on a teleconference is public domain.

You just have to make absolutely sure the quote you're using falls into one of the above categories. Err on the side of caution.

 

Some Guy, I have to disagree. How many reporters constitutes "a group" in your rule? So if every paper on your beat but you shows up and gets a quote, you get it as well because it's public domain? Absolutely wrong.

 

Co-worker was called on the carpet for making blog posts of other works but not providing attribution.

"I didn't think we had to do that since it was on the Internet."

Management gave a slap on the wrist. Co-worker has since been promoted instead of being suspended or fired and used as an example to the newsroom.

 

I'm saying if, say, a coach sits at a podium with a microphone or before a handful of television cameras and gives quotes that are being beamed nationwide on ESPN -- and probably worldwide by his employer's website -- then said coach might as well have been standing on Mount Olympus with a megaphone.

The quote belongs to the universe. That's just the way most major beats work.

One example: Several years ago, I was assigned to write one of those annual stories on how the BCS might result in another college football clusterfuck this particular season. The impetus for the story was a quote Bob Stoops made at his weekly press luncheon, blasting the BCS. Seeing as I wasn't within 1,000 miles of Norman, Okla., that day, I was handed an AP story with the quote in it to use as a jumping off point.

The story I turned in included the Stoops quote, attributed as "told the Associated Press." Nuh-uh. Our editors deleted that attribution in a heartbeat. It was unneccessary.

Another example: On the pro beat I'm on now, I get emails from prominent writers at prominent national publications all the time asking if a quote I got was "one on one" or "for the group."

If it's one-on-one, he credits my paper. If not, he doesn't have to. This is pretty much the accepted practice throughout the league. If a quote is uttered in a public place, it's public.

 

I agree with you to the extent that if it's a widely attended presser -- if you can pull it up online and find the quote yourself, if pressed -- there's no problem with using a quote with some hedging like "told reporters" or something like that.

As far as beat writers lifting each other's quotes for notebooks, I don't know that the "accepted practice" is a safe enough fallback these days. Lots of Sunday notebooks that make it look like you've talked to coaches around the league when all you've done is read other reporters who have ...