Journalism ethics: How news is corrupted by misinformation and theft.

Offices of Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, Louisiana

Carol Forsloff - Newspapers are paid for words and images they create, whether that is an Internet or standard paper source, so when they are taken by someone else, that's stealing.  Yet is not uncommon to find the same story that is found on mainstream media virtually copied word for word.  Along with that, some of the facts may be wrongfully reported the first time, then the mistakes repeated and when corrected by the source, remain errors on the copied piece.

All of this leads to misinformation and corrupts our news.

We learn in grammar school not to take words and phrases out of text material without giving credit to the source.  We learn that again when we do research for high school and college reports.  When we don't follow what we learned in grammar school when we write online, we violate even more the essential rule about plagiarism.

Let's see how it works on the Internet, because that's where it happens the most.

If you, for example, find a story, an idea that is written that excites you and simply rewrite that one story, you have in essence stolen the idea itself, especially when keywords are what drive search engines.  It means people who would ordinarily read the source material, now read yours instead.  The standard definition of plagiarism refers not just to the words but the idea created by them.

Worse are online sources who predominantly secure readership simply by copying and pasting the articles from other newspapers, even when credit is given.

This is different than having an idea or a story and wrapping it around newspaper sources for evidence.  It falls in the realm of research and can broaden both the original source reach but also provide additional information to the public supported by news.

When newspapers show advertisers their readership, those numbers are diminished by the fact that many people who would have read the source material, instead read it from a secondary source when that single source, as well as its core idea, is the only theme of the story.  That takes compensation from the newspaper and also the writer of the original as well, for the job of
the writer is dependent upon the readership also.

Rewritten material that simply takes the original source and puts it in altogether different wording is often done by newspapers as part of support for new work when the sourced material is from press releases.  That's different than a copied single story from a newspaper, done in different
words.

Rewritten newspaper articles are really sourced from the property of someone else who benefits financially from them through readership and through advertising.  When one person deprives another of financial benefit in some way, there can be repercussions eventually, although on the Internet that has not been pursued in any vigorous way, not yet.

But this is what it does to our news.  It means the original message is lost in the din of the repeats.  It means the original message may be delivered by someone with an agenda of sorts, so the message becomes an arrow for a predetermined target as opposed to
education and information, which is supposed to be the essence of news.

A number of citizen news sites are based on the model of competition, which can exacerbate the problem of repeating news, especially from only one source.  It is made worse in the atmosphere of social media where voting for a particular article establishes its place on a page. Internet
experts have long since told us most readers don't go beyond that first page when they enter a site, and therefore the news most valuable is often not the most read.  The one most popular is highlighted instead, in a vote-up system where people can vote for friends or run campaigns
somewhere in cyberspace for the sake of reaching the top.

The benefit to the culture of news is, however, undermined by such practices, from both traditional and nontraditional media, where original sources may be forgotten in the race to the top it seems.  Much of the reading public doesn't know the difference, on a glossy page,
whether the material written is original or simply copied.

The New York Times examined this issue, noting how one newspaper will copy whole passages without giving credit, so the problem doesn't belong just to bloggers or citizen news.

"ZACHERY KOUWE, a Times business reporter for a little over a year, resigned after he was accused of plagiarizing from The Wall Street Journal. An internal review of his work turned up more articles — he said he was shown four — containing copy clearly lifted from other news sources."
Plagiarism is a mortal journalistic sin, and the Times goes on to discuss how that is. But it is the theft that is worse for it takes those who write original material and minimizes their worth.  It means the public gets watered down, repeated, and often faulty news.

It is possible to be 16 years old, have a computer, and rewrite the news from next door, then package it as original on a blog somewhere.  If attractively done, and reinforced by good friends in the model of "I'll vote for you if you vote for me" parade, the blog becomes part of the
public's information, when many might not know the difference.

The behavior is widespread and repeated across the Internet, but repetition, even by the Big Boys, doesn't make it right.  It's part of the corporate greed that has undermined the culture as well.

The whole process bastardizes news when it steals.

No wonder the public doesn't trust it.