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Thanks A Lot, New York Post!
Oh wait, they should be thanking me!
It would appear that the New York Post has discovered the street sneakers I recently featured on New York Shitty and saw fit to publish an article about them today. Coincidence? I think not.
Why didn’t they just hire me to write this article? Oh wait, I do not have a journalism degree. Not only am I not qualified to “write” but I haven’t been schooled in Blog-Trolling 101— which is clearly one of the tricks of the trade print journalists employ nowadays. Why bother finding this stuff on your own when a blogger can do it for you? For free, no less! It’s like having hundreds of involuntary unpaid interns at your every point and click. Ingenious!
The folks at the Post could have at least given my humble blog a nod— but I suppose some of their readership might have found my URL objectionable. That’s sort of ironic because I find having my blog used as the source for a story (And let’s face facts, IT IS— the timing is simply too uncanny to be a mere coincidence.) without citation, well, OBJECTIONABLE. Way to go New York Post! You just ensured that the New York Daily News will get my business from now on.
In closing I would like to share a quote from a friend of mine. It is regarding her getting married at the age of 20 to a man much older than her:
He was okay with fucking a teenager, but he couldn’t bring himself to marry one.
This man was perfectly okay with screwing someone who was underage, but the notion of actually marrying one was distasteful to him. Thus, they waited until she turned 20. Frankly I fail to see the difference. But clearly in this man’s peculiar world view there was.
Sort of like having hack journos use my blog as a source without citing it. I am beneath them and yet totally “fuckable”. Or perhaps I am “fuckable” because I am beneath them? In any case, I prefer to be taken out to a nice dinner first. I might be easy but I ain’t cheap.
Maybe when I become a “grown up” journo/writer they’ll welcome me into the family?
Miss Heather
Photo Credit: Matthew McDermott, New York Post (See? I just cited the provenance of the above photograph. It’s not that difficult. Really. It’s so easy even a caveman blogger can do it.)
Comments
6 Comments on Thanks A Lot, New York Post!
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D.Billy on
Mon, 19th Nov 2007 3:42 pm
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missheather on
Mon, 19th Nov 2007 3:50 pm
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Steve of Astoria on
Mon, 19th Nov 2007 8:16 pm
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Jay on
Tue, 20th Nov 2007 4:47 pm
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missheather on
Tue, 20th Nov 2007 5:06 pm
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vintagejames on
Wed, 21st Nov 2007 10:51 am
That mofo’s about to be on Fox 5 evening news too…
How nice of them to plagiarize, uh, I mean CAPITALIZE, off my humble blog post. I never imagined in a 100 years my drech would be worth televising on Fox.
I thought New York Shitty would be too high brow for them. Apparently I was wrong.
Assholes.
I wouldn’t try to make excuses for these yellow journalists but it is the New York Post. People almost expect this. I’ve seen somewhat intelligent people reading it and it’s always for amusement only. I’d never pay for that rag ever again but I would use it to line a bird cage.
Unfortunately, the Post and most other media news sources are fed their info in a large doggy bowl via the Associated Press/United Press International most of the time. It would take more than a handful of journalists to reform “the system”. When a journalist working for a rag paper researches by viewing other people’s blogs and thinks they’re going outside their doggy bowl they’re only doing a disservice. They’ve been doing a disservice for so long by not being like wild wolves hunting for their stories. Like well trained doggies instead, this is what we expect. I know it hurts but this disservice I mention is not only to their readers but to themselves.
As a writer/journalist, a professional would know whether they deserve whatever they’re paid. It’s important for their employer to know as well. Something tells me that their employer may not care (as long as they report seemingly fresh news). The only ones who might care are their readers. When a reader realizes that they’ve been reading second-hand news it hurts. The readers who care for genuine stories are very few. If it is any comfort to all the victims of our media: the poor Post readers are simply consuming what other dogs have already eaten and digested. The regular blog readers know to give credit where it’s due and to sniff out the stinky stuff.
I hope the Post will one day give credit where it’s due and acknowledge it’s place as a second-hand newspaper.
Well, to be fair, a quick visit to Google and a search for “brooklyn sneaker wires” reveals on just the first couple of pages of results that this “phenomenon” has been written about quite frequently (both online and in “mainstream press”) even before it popped up here. I didn’t look any deeper than those first two pages, but right there are a reference from curbed.com several months ago as well as one from the New York Times in 1996.
So, evidence of plagiarism is scant at best.
You are entitled to your opinion Jay, but I emphatically disagree. Basically what this chap did was:
1. Take TWO posts of mine, the Manhattan Menagerie one (where I bring up the subject of the street sneaker “myth”) and (of course) the post featuring the actual street sneakers in question (which are in a pretty damned remote location), and
2. use the content/ideas contained therein as a basis to write his article.
It’s painfully obvious— to me, anyway.
The fact that:
3. the NY Post story went to print 5 days after I did the second post is too damned suspicious to chalk up to Google. That street sneaker post of mine got a LOT of hits— mostly via Curbed. This is probably how he found it.
This man, clearly unable and/or unwilling to do the footwork and/or have an original idea of his own used my blog/work as a “source”. Plain and simple.
Is there anything I can realistically do about it anyway? No, not really.
I suppose I could quit writing this blog altogether, but why should I punish myself for someone’s total lack of ethics? It’s not my fault the journalism industry has gone to total and utter shit.
Heather, when you are going to get fucked you want to be kissed first. Real guys get that. The Post does not have a bunch of real guys hanging around there. Never have.
You have a right to be pissed. But The Post isn’t worth your effort. Or The Daily News for that matter. I don’t waste my time reading either of them, or watching trash like Fox 5 news.
If they steal your stuff, and you can prove it, maybe you can sue the bastards.
Whatever, don’t let those morons distract you from the good work you do. Have a good turkey day, even if you don’t eat meat.
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