As you know well by now if you have been to either of our message boards more than a couple times, I am a stickler for respecting copyright and posting only snippets of stories from third party sources, with clear attributions and links. That’s why I was so incensed when I got the note shown below from my colleague Aaron Krowne, publisher of the Mortgage Lender Implode-o-meter.
Here’s my message to the New York Times–Screw you, you filthy, self righteous, plagiarist scum. The sooner your hypocritical organization finally implodes, the better off the planet will be. What a waste of perfectly nice trees you are.
Here’s Aaron’s note.
We knew it was happening, but it looks like it was more extensive and systematic than we first thought:
On Dec. 26, 2008, an online publication covering the housing market, Mortgage Implode-O-Meter, published an exclusive news report that a group of financial services firms, led by Steven Mnuchin of Dune Capital, would be buying failed IndyMac Bank from the FDIC. IndyMac was one of the first large thrift banks to be seized by the FDIC at the start of the financial crisis.
A day later, Kouwe reported for the NYT’s Dealbook that Dune Capital was expected to buy IndyMac and added two other names of buyers, JC Flowers and John Paulson, to the story. Kouwe’s report did not credit Mortgage Implode-O-Meter for first breaking the fact that 1) a private equity group was buying IndyMac 2) Dune Capital was involved.
Wire services picked up the NYT’s story and the rest of the business press ended up sourcing Kouwe for breaking the news on the sale of IndyMac to a private equity group.
Shockingly, Kouwe wrote the below, justifying his plagiarism and failures to attribute (my bold, and comments in italics):
I don’t know what to tell you. Things move so quickly on the Web that citing who had it first is something that is likely going away, especially in the age of blogs [except of course amongst blogs themselves, which give attribution religiously.]
…
For instance Dealbreaker and other blogs report on a lot of stories, but I don’t think anybody has ever cited them as being first with a particular scoop [even if no one else were doing it, would more wrongs make a right?]. I’ve had it happen to me a bunch of times at The Post and it really didn’t bother me because most readers just don’t care. They don’t read bylines and they don’t care about whether one paper cited a website or another paper in their stories [I am a reader and I can attest that I care. The idea of attribution is to provide it for sophisticated readers and other journalists who want, nay, who NEED to see the sourcing].Please publicize this as much as you can; the mainstream media MUST be held accountable.
Also noteworthy, the NY Times may have lifted material from one of my other sites, IamFacingForeclosure.com, back in 2007, when we were reporting on Judge Boyko in Ohio throwing out foreclosures for failure to produce the note:
http://iamfacingforeclosure.com/blog/2007/11/16/true-sale-false-securitizations/
Back then I assumed the similar (even verbatim, in parts) coverage was just a coincedence. Now I’m not so sure. The “similarities” in the NY Times story led some to comment back then:
“It may be a Casey [Serin, former blogger at IamFacingForeclosure.com] fantasy, but it is true in real life. I Am Facing Foreclosure broke a story that was respected enough and accurate enough to be stolen by the New York Times.”
In a final irony, the NY Times has not taken interest in any of our significant free speech “SLAPP” suits (despite my dozens of emails to prior contacts there). While both challenge freedom of the press, in one of them, a New Hampshire Superior Court judge specifically threw out the Pentagon Papers rationale (which conferred to the NYTimes’ benefit in the 70’s), bringing the whole “let’s shirk the blogs” mindset full circle. Who will cry for the NY Times when they are gagged on the next “Pentagon Papers” issue by today’s far more authoritarian courts, because they let their blog “competitors” get savaged by the omnipresent enemies of free speech?
(More info on the suits can be found at these URLs:
http://www.citmedialaw.org/blog/2009/sam-bayard/new-hampshire-court-tramples-constitution-reporters-privilege-section-230-what-have-you
http://ml-implode.com/viewnews/2008-10-09_FHASellerFundedDownpaymentOutfitSuesMLImplodeInEffortToSilenceCr.html )
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The Times has been nothing but an arm of the Propaganda Machine for so long now that I’m sure they’ve forgotten how to do basic newspaper-related things like *their own friggin research*, and crediting a source.
Shortly after I posted this, Business Insider reported that the Timez fired the reporter. The reason given was that the Wall Street Whorenal had complained to the Timez that the reporter had plagiarized a Whorenal article. No mention was made of the plagiarism of our favorite bloggers.
Rupert Murdoch complaining to the Timez is like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. But Murdoch is big and powerful and can make trouble for the Timez. The Timez can afford to ignore bloggers.
Boycott the NY Timez!!