Duplicate Headlines

Do not adjust your monitors and mobile devices, you aren’t seeing double…

So, as I tend to do with my fancy-schmancy iPad, I check the tweets when I have a few minutes. iPad for Twitter makes it really easy to scroll through my timeline and see what everyone is up to.

I was catching up Sunday morning, when a couple of tweets about Eskimos stories caught my eye.

By the time I checked in, the Edmonton Journal and iNews880(630CHED) stories appeared to be different. That would make sense since they are different newsrooms.

But, thanks to Mack D. Male (Mastermaq to you Internet savvy folk), we’ve got some screenshots that prove there was some duplication going on.

First, the lead paragraphs of the Edmonton Journal’s story on the end of the Eskimos’ season:

Now the beginning of the iNews880(630CHED) story on the same event:

Gee, that looks familiar.

You’ll note, as I mentioned earlier, that the Corus Edmonton newsroom has since changed their Eskimos story, making it wholly original.

Now, there are a couple of ways this could happen:

1. Raffaele Papainni and Mario Annicchiarico could be the same person. Or share some kind of mental connection. Unlikely, but not impossible.

2. The iNews staff thought, incorrectly, they could use news copy from any source because everyone is on “the wire.” While there are certainly ways for newsrooms to use stuff from another local newsroom when it passes through The Canadian Press news wire, it’s frowned upon to just take what you want as it’s produced, especially without accreditation. The bigger problem here is that the Journal, and its parent company (Postmedia) aren’t part of the news wire collective, so newsrooms can’t use their stuff without spelling out that it’s from the Journal (which is not very likely to happen since newsrooms want you to think they’re the only ones producing news). Perhaps a staffer snagged some copy from another Postmedia newspaper (likely in Regina, since the game was against the Roughriders) not thinking about the connections. Basically, not thinking.

3. Malicious copy and paste. I doubt this was it.

It’s certainly been an interesting week in the old mainstream media. This case really highlights the fact that anyone still arguing that whole “blogger vs. journalist” thing needs to take a look at “journalism.” This stuff didn’t come along with the blogosphere and everyone that’s creating content, regardless of where they do it, can make mistakes and cross lines.

Another example this week was the magazine Cooks Source lifting a writer’s recipe and post, and really not caring about the plagiarism.

Before we get you completely caught up on all things Edmonton, a big thanks to Mack for sharing the screenshots of our local copy and paste job.

from the Edmonton Journal:

Boom – and bust Alberta needs stabilization fund

Province will need 6,000 years to spend $2B carbon-capture money at its current rate (That sounds about right.)

New Alberta Brand: Best Bar None (Will you steer clear of bars that don’t get the accreditation?)

City’s skyline could use new skin (I first heard about this “skinning” idea last week from Mack.)

Lago Lindo eyesore gets green light for cleanup — finally

Mill Woods shopping tour: On the trail of silks and spices

Baby’s diaper blowout costs St. Albert couple their seats (You may have seen this on the Internet last week.)

Epcor Utilities reverses earlier losses

From the Calgary Herald: Alberta pursues workplace safety fines

from the Edmonton Sun:

Time off work for Remembrance Day ceremonies? (I think we had this discussion last year, about whether it’s better for people to be working or not, whether there should be more in place to let people attend ceremonies.)

Area business will tank over Indy’s death: Association (I don’t see businesses stepping up with the $8-million+ to keep the Indy…)

Anti-racism campaign fights ‘white privelege’ (This new campaign, from the City and federal government, has lots of people talking.)

Kayla’s winning, with faith and hope

New fire station opens (Is it near you?)

Black mould delays renovations at recreation centre

from Metro Edmonton:

Make more room for people along Jasper Avenue (Should we trade some street lanes for sidewalk space?)

from 630CHED/iNews880:

RCMP add another plaque to Edmonton’s Wall of Honour (It is, unfortunately, not exactly the wall of honour you want to get on.)

from Global Edmonton:

Officers found guilty in homeless roundup

Veterans rally (Our soldiers want more from the government.)

Wow. After looking at where all the weekend news came from it’s clear that our two daily newspapers still have the largest staffs and the most news output.

How about one more? Sure. Former Journal columnist Scott McKeen has detailed why he ran for office and all the shenanigans that come with it. He’s also got some rules for those of you considering a run.