Journalism Issues

FIRST ACCOUNT by John Burke at WAN's Editor's Weblog
http://www.editorsweblog.org/print_newspapers/2006/03/ap_accused_of_taking_story_from_a_blog.php

AP accused of taking story from a blog

The Associated Press confirmed using a story from blog RawStory.com as the basis for a March 14th article detailing a change in national security policies.

The information in the article written by the AP, .Security Clearance Rules May Impede Gays,. attributed its information to gay rights groups, who happened to be wrong and who received their information from Raw Story. The discovery was made by Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story's Managing News Editor, and John Byrne, Raw Story's Executive Editor. According to Raw Story, they .picked the wording out of an extended document released in December [and the] AP ran a story the following day, highlighting the same item and using similar language..

Two gay rights groups confirmed they had used Raw Story.s articles and notes as the basis of their conversation with the AP reporter. The AP later admitted they had learned of the article from the Raw Story site.
AP.s Director of Media Relations Jack Stokes said the reason Raw Story wasn.t credited in the Mar. 14 article was because the bureau .hadn.t heard of. Raw Story, and because they had received the article from third-party groups. He said the agency would be issuing a statement on the issue soon.

.We do credit blogs that we know,. Stokes said. .We had no idea who you were.. AP has given credit to blogs like Instapundit and Pajamas Media. Raw Story has previously received credit from The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, Roll Call, The Hill, The Salt Lake Tribune, MSNBC and Rolling Stone, although many publications still take articles from the site without attributing them. This is not the first time a news organization has been found using an article from a blog without crediting it.

Source: Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Associated_Press_says_they_based_article_0328.html

Associated Press says they based article on Raw Story report but refuses
to credit or correct

John Byrne
Published: Tuesday March 28, 2006

(John Byrne is executive editor of Raw Story and a former reporter for The
Boston Globe).

The Associated Press has confirmed using a Raw Story report as the basis for a Mar. 14 article detailing a change to national security clearance policies but has refused to issue credit for the piece.

Their article, "Security Clearance Rules May Impede Gays," signaled an apparent Bush Administration attempt to tighten security clearances with regard to gay Americans. It attributed the discovery of the clearance changes to gay rights groups . a factually inaccurate statement which the agency has refused to correct. The discovery was made by Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story's Managing News Editor, and John Byrne, Raw Story's Executive Editor.

Raw Story picked the wording out of an extended document released in December. AP ran a story the following day, highlighting the same item and using similar language. Two gay rights groups, Human Rights Campaign and Servicemembers' Legal Defense Network, confirmed they had used Raw Story's article and notes distributed by Raw Story as the basis of their conversations with the AP reporter. The AP later admitted they had learned of the change from the Raw Story article. Raw Story.s article, along with notes intended to help groups speak to its contents, was sent to gay groups by Michael Rogers, a gay activist who runs PageOneQ.com.

In response to inquiries about the errant wording . .lesbian and gay advocacy groups recently found the change. . AP.s Director of Media Relations Jack Stokes has said the language had been carefully worded. The AP disputes Raw Story.s claim that their report was inaccurate.

Raw Story had requested a correction from the AP late last week. Katherine Shrader, the AP national security correspondent who authored the article, told us she had spoken with her editor and that no correction would be made. "I've talked it over with our bureau chief and we're not going to be doing that," Shrader said. In a return call, Shrader refused to talk further and referred calls to AP.s corporate communications office.

Raw Story then spoke with Jack Stokes, AP.s Director of Media Relations. Stokes took careful notes regarding our concerns and said he would investigate our claims. He found that the AP had, indeed, gotten our article from "human rights groups" but that it was AP policy not to credit blogs. "It does turn out that we don't give mentions to blogs when we're researching our stories and when we've been given material by others such as in this case human rights groups that brought this stuff to us that we independently check," Stokes said in a voicemail message.
Stokes elaborated Tuesday, saying the AP does give credit to blogs. He said the reason Raw Story wasn.t credited in the Mar. 14 article was because the bureau .hadn.t heard of. Raw Story, and because they had received the article from third-party groups. He said the agency would be issuing a statement, most likely later today.

.We do credit blogs that we know,. Stokes said. .We had no idea who you were..

In the past, AP has given credit to such blogs as Instapundit and Pajamas Media. Raw Story has previously received credit from The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, Roll Call, The Hill, The Salt Lake Tribune, MSNBC and Rolling Stone, though major media publications have repeatedly lifted the site.s work without attribution.

Servicemembers. Legal Defense Network confirmed they had given Raw Story.s original article to the AP reporter. Human Rights Campaign said they had briefed their director on the story from the original Raw Story report. Neither group mentioned Raw Story in their press releases . which Stokes said may have affected how AP handled the story. Raw Story did receive credit for the story in the Washington Blade, D.C..s
leading gay newspaper.

// posted by newshare @ 12:07 AM