And that’s the great thing about working for a publication like this. You get to draw attention to all the reporters working their ass off to tell great stories who otherwise might not find this audience. I’ll go out of my way to attribute a story to someone, and so do the other writers here, from what I’ve seen. Because we’re not a bunch of assholes. Sending you somewhere else after you read a story here impacts us negatively in absolutely no way. So when someone steals your story and doesn’t even bother attributing it to you, especially on the Internet, where it’s so easy to add in one little link, it’s [adjective, intensifier] infuriating. It just makes that hard work seem even more worthless.
The most egregious organization when it comes to these offenses, and I’m sure this is one of the main sites that Carr has in mind, is the Daily Mail. That’s why my first order of business as Internet media sheriff is to tell the Daily Mail to go [verb] themselves and to do whatever I can to not give them traffic.
It’s not just that they steal stories so blatantly. They’ve been doing it for years, this is nothing new. It’s that they’re a bunch of assholes about it. They go out of their way to [verb] over journalists and they reap the benefits by becoming the most highly trafficked newspaper on the Internet. How hard would it be to put in one link to an article?
I’m sure their entry level “journalists” who scour the Internet daily for sites to rip off don’t enjoy being a bunch of thieving assholes. But they are. And the people in charge, the one’s who most certainly have instituted a policy of non-attribution, sit back and reap the profits.
I’ve certainly linked out to The Daily Mail before. I follow their twitter. They are great at aggregating and regurgitating stories, so it’s a real shame they can’t have just a little bit of honor amongst thieves, a shred of common decency, and credit the sites and reporters where they get their stories. So here is what I’m going to do. When I find a story on the Daily Mail I really like and want to write up, I’m going to take an extra five minutes and google some of the key words. I’m going to find the original story, or at least something close to, and I’m going to post that instead. I’d encourage you, if you’re in the position to drive traffic somewhere, be it through your own personal social media use or your job, to do the same.
Say it with me now: The Daily Mail can go [verb] itself.
Dreadful business. Crumpet?
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