Friday, July 22, 2011

Sure, Dallas Morning News, you can steal my scoop

Around 1:30 pm on Thursday, July 21, The Dallas Morning News ran the Oswald t-shirt story on their website's main page, on their "Scoop Blog." Initially, they credited me with breaking the story and linked to my original story on Yahoo. An hour later, using quotes gleaned by their reporter, they changed the story, dropping any mention of me and re-writing the story as if they dug it up themselves. I guess they define "scoop" as taking someone's work without the courtesy of an acknowledgment.

A basic rule of thumb in journalism requires that you cite your original source if you did not break the story. That does not always apply on national stories, but in this case, they should have at least acknowledged that I broke the story. On Friday, they wrote a feature story about it for their online and print editions and still did not even give me a shout out. Or a mention, Or a link. Or even the finger. I guess when you are the big dog, you can blow off independent journalists like myself and use our work as your own.  

A big thanks to NBC-DFW, Pegasus News, and the other sites who linked to my story and gave me credit. As a freelance writer for Yahoo, a portion of my pay is based on readership. When The Dallas Morning News doesn't have the courtesy to acknowledge my story, which they used to write a story on their own on a page full of ads, it costs me in actual dollars. Stay classy, Morning News.

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