Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
Gratitude
Filed under: 11211, Brooklyn, Greenpoint, New York City, Plagiarism, Williamsburg
I rarely give shout-outs to blogs for the simple reason I do not have the time. After I have completed my posts, sift through the detritus in my inbox and surfed the webs I call it quits. Today I am going to make an exception. Brooklyn11211 writes in a post entitled Behold the Power of the Interwebs:
I can independently verify Einstein’s theory of relativity. That doesn’t mean I should call it my own. The Post has no more right to its “exclusive” based on its own verification of a blog post.
You’re making a very dangerous proposition 11211. You are making the argument that “neighborhood bloggers” (the ghetto print establishment likes to relegate the likes of me and you) and journalists are equals. We’re not. Mr. Ginsberg’s missive makes this all too clear:
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…
Looking forward to amplifying more of your good work in the future.
The truly nauseating thing about Mr. Ginsberg’s comment is he thought he was being nice— and that I should be somehow beholden to him for “amplifying” my scoop. I am not grateful. I am pissed off. And no amount of crying “Post policy” is going to change this. If anything, it is a clear indication of a lack of moral/ethical fiber on his part. But I suppose that comes with the territory.
Needless to say when I read Suzi Halpin’s defense of her employer I damned near had an aneurysm:
The New York Post credits blogs, bloggers, and other media all the time, as our readers know.
Except when when your readers don’t know— because your employer, the New York Post, doesn’t cite them. Which is often. Here are a few examples to refresh your memory Ms. Halpin.
September 14, 2008: I wrote a post about how the plaque at Father Giorgio Square was stolen. I happened to walk by when the police were taking a report. There was no way the institution you represent would have known about it save my blog. I published it on a Sunday. The next day Murdoch’s flunkies were on it like flies on shit. They even called the Brooklyn Kitchen to ask about their stolen tree. Is this your idea of reporting? Stolen trees?
May 4, 2009: I get a tip about strange graffiti in Greenpoint. I post it. My readers decipher it— yet it was a New York Post “exclusive”. I take up the matter and get what can be best described as a semi-literate and crazed email from its author: John Doyle. If the previous is an indication of what it takes to be a reporter, god help us all.
May 18, 2009: I wrote a post about a flier I found at McCarren Park decrying the noise made ice cream trucks. Reuven Fenton and his homeboy were on the scene the next day. I know this because a reader and contributor of mine bumped into them:
I was just finishing my run in McCarren Park when I saw a guy sporting two fancy cameras talking to another guy near the pool. Being a sucker for men with big lenses, I ventured over to see what they were up to and it turns out they were from the Post covering a story on ice cream trucks disturbing the neighbors of McCarren Park. I mentioned NYshitty covering the story and I asked them where they heard about this story and they said Curbed and Gothamist. Hmmm… no new york shitty? The dudes names were Reuben and Paul, wait isn’t that like Pee Wee?
I called them on it. And your publication gave me a crumby quote in return. Removed from context and not linked to despite my creation of a mirror site: www.thatgreenpointblog.com.
It was at this point I began to understand that the paper you represent depends on people like me for their livelihood.
Which brings me to your institution’s latest act of plagiarism.
August 19, 2009: I wrote a post about “Cutting Edge Fitness” at the behest of a tipster.
It took awhile for the Post, the publication you represent, to get around to it, but lift it they did!
August 31, 2009
Quite frankly, I was disappointed it took almost two full weeks for your employer to rip off this one, Suzi. I’m not a patient person. Thankfully I was engaged in other things and Alex Ginsberg saw fit to post this comment on my blog:
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.
Alex
I wrote a blog post about it. And you have been hired to explain it away. There is no explanation: it is plagiarism, plain and simple.
To drive the point home (because it is all too clear Mr. Ginsberg, you and your employer is too “thick” or arrogant to “get it”) here are a few more examples:
Gowanus Lounge, January 13, 2009:
This is yesterday’s news, because we ran the story on Curbed early yesterday morning, and we’re sure some of the papers are going to be “discovering” the story and having some fun with it today, but The Future of Coney Island website URL was acquired by a Belgian porn entrepreneur. (The Post’s Rich Calder predictably reports the story as though he discovered it without crediting Curbed for breaking the news.)
POSTED May 18, 2009
May 12, 2009: EV Grieve posted this. Your reporter’s “scoop” is pretty much verbatim regurgitation of EV Grieve’s work.
May 28, 2009: the New York Post, your employer, posted this:
Vanishing New York, reported about this as early as May 19,2009. What’s more he (she?) kept at it.
I have just cited seven examples where the New York Post, your employer, has blatantly lifted material from blogs without citing them, Suzi. If you need more I’ll gladly tender them to you.
I understand that you are in a very tenuous position, Suzi. The print media, New York Post included, has not adapted to the reality of online media. I suspect this is why your employer, Rupert Murdoch, is waging war on Google. When defeated the entitled try to change the rules:
Mr Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corp, was among the first to hit out at Google, one of the biggest aggregators through its Google News service.
“Should we be allowing Google to steal our copyrights? If you have a brand like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, you don’t have to.” Robert Thomson, the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal which is owned by News Corp, went further in his attack. “There is a collective consciousness among content creators that they are bearing the costs and that others are reaping some of the revenues. “There is no doubt that certain websites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet,” said Mr Thomson.
I find this ironic given the worst plagiarists I have dealt with to date, as a “blogger” (and by Murdoch’s definition a “parasite” or “tapeworm”) are New York Post reporters. Could you please clarify how your employer is any different from than various and sundry parasites who troll the webs and claim my content (as well as the above-listed as their own), Ms. Halpin?
To take Brooklyn11211’s more nuanced approach: if I can verify via “independent sources” that your employer, Rupert Murdoch, is an unscrupulous shitbag who is doing everything in his power to bully independent media, plagiarizes my blog and others— constantly, spouts right-wing bullshit and wants to suppress free speech do I need to cite him? I eagerly wait your answer to this question, Suzi Halpin.
Given the number of stories your publication has lifted from my blog I have ample credentials to be a “reporter” for crap rag you call the New York Post.
HIRE ME.
Oh wait— I have ethics.
Miss Heather
P.S.: Here’s a (working) honor roll of blogs, big and small, who have found Mr. Ginsberg’s/New York Post’s conduct objectionable:
- Neiman Journalism Lab, Harvard University
- Snapper Patter
- Techdirt
- Gawker
- Media Metamorphosis
- Superpunch
- FAIR.org
- Gothamist (Jen Carlson gets kudos for calling me this asshat’s “muse”. I laughed my ass off when I read that.)
- Queens Crap
- Brooklyn11211
- Citoyen Michel (France)
- Manga Verde
- Blogografia and my personal favorite:
- (shh-no-digan-que-lo-saque-de-un-blog): Puerto Rico represents!
- Journalisten (Sweden) Click here to read it in English.
- Pink Lemon (Tunisia) Click here to read it in English.
- Bed-Stuy Banana
Behold The Power Of The Interwebs!
Filed under: 11211, Asshole, New York City, Plagiarism, Williamsburg, Williamsburg Brooklyn
Not surprisingly my latest post about the New York Post has garnered a great deal of attention. Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York has given it a shout out. As has EV Grieve and Bowery Boogie. Before I continue I would like to take a moment to tender my sincerest gratitude to my friends in the East Village; their tribulations at the behest of the local print media have shown time and time again that this is not purely a “Brooklyn blogger” problem. The practice of claiming material from a blogger as one’s own is much more pervasive; if Maureen Dowd has been caught doing just this it begs the question as to how many of her brethren are also guilty— but simply have not been caught. Or called on it.
I mention the previous because over the last 24 hours I have noticed a number of incoming links that come from web sites whose subject matter is not “neighborhood bloggers” or “blogging”. Rather, their focus is on the institution of journalism itself. Among the previous— much to my amazement— is a journalism “think tank” at Harvard University.
What’s more, they have contacted one of the reporters who lifted my story and the New York Post’s public relations firm: Rubenstein Associates. Not surprisingly they have yet to hear back from either of the previous. You can read the rest of the above tome by clicking here.
Miss Heather
UPDATE: Snapper Patter, Techdirt, Gawker, Media Metamorphosis, Superpunch, FAIR.org, Citoyen Michel (click here to read in English) and Gothamist have thrown in their respective two cents! Thanks!!!
UPDATE, 9/10/09: Boniknik, The Desert Lamp, Manga Verdes, Mary Turck, Blogografia have joined the fray.
Reader Comment Of The Week: A Reporter From The New York Post Speaks!
I suspected I’d get a response from someone from the New York Post after I wrote this screed. I did. It was much more reasoned, lucid and intelligible than this one. I was pleasantly surprised, but found it disquieting nonetheless.
Although you can read this comment in its entirety by clicking on the above image or by clicking here (see comments). I will post it here:
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.
Alex
Gee, thanks… I think. It is not the purpose to malign Mr. Ginsberg in this post (though it invariably will). Rather, I found his comment telling about the state of print journalism in general:
1. Not citing blogs is “company policy”. As Ginsberg wrote: You did a fantastic reporting job. All I had to do was follow your steps (and make a few extra phone calls).
2. Ginsberg writes …Although I would note that another Times policy would prevent them from actually printing the name of your blog…
I have erected a mirror site with a much less objectionable url (www.thatgreenpointblog) for just this reason. Yet the plagiarism persists. It has become all too clear that “offensive” blog urls are a red herring.
3. Looking forward to amplifying more of your good work in the future.
So this somehow makes it “right”? Inasmuch as I riff on recent journalism school graduates (which are what staffs many of the papers here— as “independent contractors”— nowadays) I do not think they are by and large dishonest. They need to eat and have a roof over their head just like the rest of us— so they abide by “company policy”.
I do not blame them for doing what they have to do to earn a living; I blame the institutions which employ them. As contractors, these reporters are paid chump change for stories and thus have to churn out a lot of material (usually for numerous publications) in order to make ends meet. Given the workload they shoulder I am hardly surprised they troll blogs for leads. What bothers me is the fact their employers are profiting from their, my and many others hard work.
There was a time when New York City had “beat” reporters. They have since been replaced by contractors— to cut costs— and neighborhood coverage has suffered as a result. “Bloggers” as you call them— I prefer to call them citizen journalists— have made up for this, among them:
Amusing The Zillion
Atlantic Yards Report
Bed-Stuy Banana
Bed-Stuy Blog
Best View In Brooklyn
I care not to recite the whole list in its entirety— much less alphabetically. They can be found on my blog roll— although I’d feel remiss if I didn’t mention Sheepshead Bites or my friends in the East Village:
Vanishing New York
EV Grieve
Neither More Nor Less
And last, but not least: Queens Crap.
If my memory serves me correctly the latter four have been “amplified” by the New York Post and the New York Times recently. Much to their respective chagrins. Call us ungrateful, but we’re not content with being “amplified”; we want recognition for our work.
The sad thing is in the absence of neighborhood reporters bloggers and newspapers could forge a mutually beneficial relationship, e.g.; exchanging leads, tips, information and so forth for the betterment and edification of our mutual readerships. I do not see this happening— especially since a reporter from the New York Post has pretty much admitted to cribbing my content and “making a few phone calls” to write a story.
A story he was, no doubt, paid for writing. I wasn’t. Very few “bloggers” are.
Miss Heather
P.S.: You can read an email string between Mr. Ginsberg and someone who took issue with his plagiarism by clicking here.
New York Shitty Day Starter: Two Week Old News On A Blog = New York Post “News”
Filed under: 11211, Asshole, Criminal Activity, Plagiarism, Williamsburg, Williamsburg Brooklyn
On August 19, 2009 I wrote a little post about Cutting Edge Fitness on my “blog”. It was at the behest of a concerned citizen and started like this:
Hi Miss Heather,
I enjoy reading your blog from time-to-time and especially appreciate the news on the developments around the neighborhood.
I’d like to share with you some information about a building on the Southside, in hopes that it can get out to others who deserve to know. So, here goes:
The building has a retail space in the bottom which is currently owned by the developer and being rented to a John Suarez, who is running it as a gym, called Cutting Edge.
Well, there are many problems here:
1) The space isn’t zoned to be a gym
2) He is occupying space in the basement and using it for classes and workout space when it is only supposed to be used as storage
3) There’s no proper emergency exit from the basement
4)He’s illegally (i.e., with no work permit) installing showers/bathrooms in the basementThe biggest problem of all is that John Suarez has been forbidden by the Attorney General to ever operate a gym. A few years back he had advertised the opening of a new gym in the neighborhood, called Core Health and Fitness. He never opened the gym, even after taking people’s money. He was ordered to pay back $172,000 in restitution, but I know for a fact (a neighbor was a victim of the scam) that people did not get their money back.
You can read my post in its entirety by clicking here. After I hit the “publish” button, August 19, I turned to the Mister and said:
I lay odds 80% in favor of this being ripped off by the “print media”. I’d give it 90% except this actually helps people.
On August 20, 2009 my tome was linked to by:
On August 23 I took up the matter with Queens Crap and Forgotten NY. We agreed this item would be cribbed— but by whom? My knee jerk reaction was the New York Post. And as of August 31, 2009 my prognostication came to pass.
The Post one-upped my lowly blogger person by sending out a professional “photographer” to document said premises (which I had done already); he was assaulted by Mr. Suarez. I learned about this via Gothamist:
And here’s a here’s a slice of the Post’s take:
Compare my fact-finding with Ms. Sutherland’s and Mr. Ginsberg’s “scoop”: they dovetail. I was more specific (because my source and I did our research). But am I cited? Of course not. Amber and Alex claimed this discovery as their own.
Yesterday’s (or two week old) news— gleaned from blogs— with ample sensationalism thrown in is the Post’s modus operandi. If the chronic practice of “print journalists” plagiarizing “bloggers” and touting their (my) fact-finding as their own bothers you, dear readers, you can contact Alex Ginsberg at:
alex (dot) ginsberg (at) nypost (dot) com
Miss Heather
“Hostelity”
There are things I want to do this curiously hazy Friday afternoon. Writing this post is not one of them. But it touches upon something I myself have experienced twice this month: a web site being used as a source for a print publication story without proper citation. Plagiarism. Thankfully this latest “incident” does not involve yours truly. You see, another thing I dislike doing is sending angry missives to people who have profited from my work. Nonetheless I feel compelled to pass this item along as it is one of— if not the most— flagrant examples of outright plagiarism I have encountered to date.
On May 28, 2009 Vanishing New York, a blog based in the East Village for those of you who are not in the know, wrote:
For some time, the New York Post has notoriously been ripping off blogger Miss Heather over at New York Shitty. She writes about neighbors angry at ice-cream truck noise, a day later, the Post is on the scene. She writes about weird graffiti, bam, there’s the Post with an “exclusive.” In that case, the journalist huffily defended himself saying that because he went to the scene and did his own research, that counts as an exclusive.
This is the Post’s MO. They take a blogger’s story, add their research, and call it their own, without ever crediting the blogger. Maybe they figure, Eh, who reads blogs anyway, especially way out there in Brooklyn?
Well, now they’re pillaging the East Village blogs. They did it to EV Grieve, calling their story on the Bullet Space squat an “exclusive.” And now they’re ripping me off…
What is this latest “exclusive”, you ask? Very simple: a darkly entertaining tome about neighbors acting anything but neighborly. In this tale of noise, drunkenness and yes, Conway Twitty, we learn about the dysfunctional relationship between the patrons of the Cooper Square Hotel’s outdoor patio and the people who have the misfortune of living not only an earshot— but also a arm’s length from them and their apparently endless banter. The following are excerpts from Vanishing New York’s “Volumes I & II of Notes From the Backside” to give you a better grasp of the situation:
From Volume I, dated May 19:
…got to try the megaphone this week. About 2 am a drunk woman came out to the patio and wondered at its beauty. I pulled out the megaphone and said in a store announcer kind of voice “Attention Cooper Square Hotel douchebags: shut the hell up and get off the patio.â€
Didn’t work. She said “That makes my new york experience complete†and continued to yammer away. The hotel made a half-hearted effort to get her out of there.
From Volume II, dated May 26:
We had a delicious victory yesterday. We saw that the hotel’s co-owner was sitting on the patio a few feet from our window. We put our speakers at the window.
But what to play?
The un-coolest thing we could come up with was Roger Miller and Conway Twitty’s greatest hits. Then we put on this vile, 7-minute comedy routine about a prostitute and a banana. And set it to repeat.
While highly entertaining this does not strike me as being the kind of thing that can or should qualify as an “exclusive” in a paper of record. But this is exactly what happened. Try this quote from the Post’s article on the subject (which went to print yesterday, May 28) on for size:
One resident, armed with a megaphone, leaned out his window and greeted a patron who strayed out on the patio after it was closed. When that didn’t work, he placed the megaphone next to a stereo speaker and shared a crude comedy skit.
Isn’t this more or less the same thing, albeit in less detail? Similarities abound between Vanishing New York’s coverage of this story and the Post’s article. Enough so that both City Room and Gothamist have taken note. The latter called the Post’s exclusive:
a shameless jack of original reporting
I am inclined to agree— or at the very least the timing and similarity of content demand an explanation. In closing I would like to pass along the following thoughts/observations:
- In the interest of fairness I eventually did get an apology of sorts from the reporter who wrote about Greenpoint’s “Nazi” graffiti.
- It was from this reporter I learned that the editorial staff elected to call his story an exclusive, not him.
- The previous brings me to a point I have been woefully remiss in making so I will do so here and now: to merely blame the reporters for lifting material from blogs is incredibly short-sighted and naive. It is all too clear this practice is sanctioned, if not out rightly encouraged, by their higher ups. In other words this is an institutional problem.
- I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there are real stories to be followed up on out there, why this one? This is not to “pooh pooh” what the neighbors of the Cooper Square Hotel are experiencing— I understand their plight all too well. \But given the recent uptick in violence against homeless people and “crusties” at Tompkin’s Square Park— and the print media’s reluctance to report about it— I have to wonder where their priorities are. Actually I don’t have to wonder too much— it’s all about the numbers: they publish stories they think the public will read (so as to boost their circulation and reap more advertising revenue). If we didn’t read it, they would not publish it. Thus the story of a 26 year old woman who dies as a result of “wilding” in the East Village slides by and we read an amusing tale of neighbors at war instead. If you ask me this is a pretty damning indictment of not only the print media— but also the values espoused its readership. Yes, that means you and me.
- Ideally I envision reporters/print publications partnering with neighborhood blogs (inasmuch as I hate using the previous term) and generating some wonderful stories. Ideally. Frankly I do not see this happening anytime soon because the print media as a whole treats its online brethren (yes, brethren) with nothing short of cynical contempt. And if my experience over the last three years of writing New York Shitty and interfacing with other “bloggers” is any indication, the feeling is mutual.
- If anyone afflicted by the noise of the Cooper Square Hotel is reading this: try bagpipe music— just like Colt 45 it works every time!
Miss Heather
Image Credits: EVGrieve via Vanishing New York.
A New York Post “Exclusive”
On May 7, 2009 Animal New York wrote:
The New York Post published a graffiti story in today’s paper that New York Shitty posted earlier in the week, simply confirming the Greenpoint-based blog’s observations and comments with an expert, then declaring the mysterious tags to be “Nazi cult graffiti.”
When this was brought to my attention yesterday (thanks Animal New York and Gothamist) I was literally speechless. When I noticed that Mr. Doyle and Mr. Sanderson had the temerity to call this sensationalist schlock an “exclusive” I got angry. Very. Angry. And thus I feel compelled to give these gentleman a refresher course in Journalism 101:
Culling previously published material from a web site— material, I will add, that was linked to by Gothamist and Brownstoner, among others— and trotting out an expert to verify “your” findings does not constitute an “exclusive”. It is plagiarism, plain and simple.
Those of you reading this who feel the same way and wish to remind Mr. Doyle of this fact can contact him via email at: john (dot) doyle (at) nypost (dot) com
Tell him New York Shitty sent you.
Miss Heather
UPDATE, 5/8/09: Mr. Doyle responds to a New York Shitty reader! Not only does he deny any plagiarism on his part, but it would appear he cannot spell the word for that matter. Whoops.
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