Quicklink: Animal New York Gets Poached!

Many of you who have followed this blog over the years have undoubtedly noticed that a number of stories broken by yours truly have a strange way of finding their way onto the pages of Newscorp’s manifold publications within a matter of hours/days/weeks— often as “exclusives”. As you can imagine I find this phenomenon very interesting. What’s more, I can assure you it is not a coincidence. In fact, one of their own reporters even admitted as much! Alex Ginsberg comments (regarding my reporting about Cutting Edge Fitness):

Post policy prevented me from crediting you in print. Allow me to do so now. You did a fantastic reporting job. All I had to do was follow your steps (and make a few extra phone calls).

I won’t discuss at length the policy of not crediting blogs (or anyone else). I’ll just briefly explain that as long as we can independently verify every bit of info, we don’t credit.

You will find that the Daily News observes the same policy, but the Times does not. (They often write an explanatory phrase like, ‘The investigation into Mr. Spitzer was first reported in the New York Post.’ That’s not a real one. I just made it up. Although I would note that another Times policy would prevent them from actually printing the name of your blog, presenting them with an unresolvable conflict between two inflexible rules.)

Looking forward to “amplifying” more of your good work in the future.

So you can imagine my dark amusement when I stumbled upon the above item from Animal New York today. A very angry Bucky Turco writes:

While it’s common knowledge that the New York Post often rips off story ideas from local blogs—just ask editors from Gothamist, EV Grieve, New York Shitty, Vanishing New York, Sheepshead Bites and a handful of others—their latest article on the bombing of the Bowery mural, which was basically lifted from several ANIMAL posts, was particularly egregious…

You can read the whole sad story by clicking here. In closing, I would like to leave you with this quote from Newcorp’s spokesperson, Suzi Halpin:

The New York Post credits blogs, bloggers, and other media all the time, as our readers know.

Except when they don’t. If the Post followed the above policy to the letter their readership would quickly comprehend exactly how much of the content they are reading has its provenance from online/alternative/independent media outlets (READ: blogs). Welcome to the club, Bucky— and by all means keep on writing! Dozens of reporters depend on people like you and me for their livelihood!

Miss Heather