Giving credit

Lee Becker conducted an informal study of how Oconee County residents gather their information, and he noted that seven percent of them mentioned alternative online sources (i.e. blogs). He put a lot of work into it, and it's an interesting read that I recommend, but that's not what caught my eye ...

Neither in the story nor in the editorial did the Banner-Herald mention that it had learned about the secret meeting from a citizen blog.

Former Banner-Herald reporter Adam Thompson, who wrote the paper’s story, told me in an email message he sent me on June 4 that he had revealed that he had learned about the secret meeting from my blog in the story he wrote, but the editors removed the reference from the story before it was published. (Thompson has left the paper to go to law school.)

That's interesting ... and fairly disheartening.

Grift offered some comment on it when it all began to break ...

When, where and how Becker should have been credited should be debated. However, it is clear the Athens Banner-Herald missed an opportunity to use the transparency shield as a tool to give its readers a complete vision of this particular story and glimpse at how all stories emerge. A beneficial by-product would have been appropriate credit for Dr. Becker and possibly a strengthening of the perception of the new media warrior and the traditional media guardian sharing the role of protectors of democracy.

In full disclosure - and readers of this blog should be fully aware of this - I write a regular column for the Athens Banner-Herald, and the paper credits me as running this blog. And the overwhelming majority of my writings at this blog is geared toward commentary of news covered by the ABH, but I do, from time to time, compete in the breaking news category (though I lack the resources and time to effectively do so on a regular basis).

I cut my teeth in journalism at the Banner-Herald, and one of the lessons imparted on me by my mentors was that, if you're beat on a story, you offer the appropriate credit to the outlet that beat you during the initial reporting. Any complimentary work done afterward is yours and yours alone, but you give credit where credit is due.

And that makes this disappointing.

This particular episode is even more enlightening given the reaction of the traditional broadcast newtorks to President Obama calling on a blogger during his most recent press conference. The blogger, who writes for The Huffington Post, has been scrutinized by various traditional media outlets and featured as a guest on others. And the story is less about the question he asked (which was, quite frankly, the toughest one tossed to the president), but rather why he got to ask it.

I've never been the type of blogger who's believed that we can effectively challenge the full-time, day-to-day reporting institutions like newspapers, radio or TV. However, I do believe that the emerging social media can offer a unique perspective and offer a strong parallel when it comes to immediate reporting and analysis of news and events.

Consider the recent coverage of The Georgia Theater fire, and how social media drove the intial reporting of that incident. Photos were posted at Flickr and up-to-the-second comments streamed in from Twitter. Various blogs, such as mine, then collected this information - added our own reporting and/or commentary - and then distributed that in a centralized location.

I didn't beat the traditional media on anything, but I was able to gather a wide collection of citizen photographs - including ones that offered the first glimpse of the inside of the building - and that complimented the ongoing coverage from that newspaper. The Banner-Herald's staff delivered exceptional investigative and feature works in the aftermath of the fire that has helped fill in the blanks after the various elements of social media provided the up-to-the-minute news of what was going on.

It's a symbiotic relationship, not an either-or scenario, and it is frustrating to see this crop up.