Earlier today Danny Sullivan posted a detailed story on his personal blog, outlining the response to a post he wrote on Searchngineland.com.
That post, “Woman Follows Google Maps ‘Walking’ Directions, Gets Hit, Sues” sparked a flurry of media coverage, from both blogs and traditional media. What Sullivan discovered, however, was that while some outlets thought it worthwhile to link back to his story, many rewrote it or took elements from it without attribution. Most of those outlets were in the mainstream media.
Sullivan notes the sometimes stark contrast between new and old media, namely that bloggers usually post links (or at least credit) to where they saw the story, and make an effort to figure out who had it first.
In contrast, a traditional media outlet typically does not document how a story came to life. It’s all a mystery. News just seems to emerge magically out of thin air in the middle of a newsroom. Or, it’s down to all those hard-working reporters out there defending democracy despite newspapers earning less these days because of all those rip-off bloggers.
Mainstream media outlets love to cry foul when they think a blog has stolen their scoop, but have no problem doing it themselves, all they need is to make a phone call.
If old media were to embrace the link and reveal where they first saw stories, maybe readers would view them in a different light. It is safe to say many, if not most, mainstream reporters discover their news the same way bloggers do: online, through links, so why not just acknowledge it and get it over with.
