Henceforward, we shall refer to Kevin Leininger as “a local guy who keeps a journal at a local business.”
From his column today on a story we wrote about six days ago.
Perhaps that’s why New Haven Mayor Terry McDonald posted this admittedly cheeky comment on a local Web site in response to Henry’s proposal:
Of course, he was referring to this Web site. If just kills MSM to actually acknowledge our presence.
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Sure, they won\’t mention you by name, but the rat bastards will glady steal your content and not even have the decency to rewrite it. Perhaps the TV stations are more lazy, but print (who has the most to lose in the content wars) folks appear more devious.
Since no one has mentioned it in a while, Dan, thanks for allowing me and others the chance to participate.
The Indy Start does the same thing to local bloggers. Attribution would be nice and on “rare” occasions some of them have done it. I have always tried to do it here, with a few well deserved exceptions.
If I thought I could get a cadre of dedicated volunteer writers, I would spin off the URL fortwaynenews.com, (which currently points here) and start a citizen generated local news site. The writers could have a byline with a blurb promoting their business, and/or maybe some free ads.
I think finding people committed to regularly producing an article would be the big challenge. I also have fortwaynebusiness.com, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that.
Dan, creating compelling content has always been the challenge. That’s why we see newspapers (who are the experts at cutting costs but idiots at creating good content from fewer and fewer resources) stealing content from bloggers. Their thinking is: if we attribute it, we run the risk of not doing our jobs and admitting we’ve cut the expenses but also endangered the product. If we steal it and don’t attribute it, then the “little guy” bloggers won’t do anything but bitch, because they don’t have the resources to fight. I’m waiting for them to steal from a blogger who is also a lawyer who has nothing better to do than tie them up in court and bankrupt them with defense costs.
I would be happy to volunteer to write, but, I only usually write as a way of dealing with the frustrations of daily life. It’s really not a creative binge, it’s just a way of dealing with the stress so that I don’t do something stupid like showing up at a Council meeting, jumping up and urinating on the table.
In trying to be fair to two of my favorite writers, I would point out that both Kevin and Dan used the Indianapolis Business Journal as the basis for their articles and no one knows for sure whether Kevin found the entire article at AWB first or found the Terry McDonald quote with a simple Google search.
If Kevin’s article was digital, we could follow the quote back to AWB as the original source, but the article was printed on dead trees first. It could be that he didn’t name AWB simply because the name might be offensive to some of his readers or his editor scrubbed it.
I do think that since the readership at the N-S and at AWB are markedly different, citing the blog name (or at least to fortwaynenews.com) would be the appropriate action and a courtesy contact with Dan before publishing would have been a highly desireable approach.
I had a couple of similar experiences with Leininger earlier this year. In fact, one of the issues I took to a city councilman who told me he thought I was on to something. Later that afternoon, I spoked with a reporter at the NS, not Leininger, who basically told me there was nothing there. The next day, a Friday, I received a phone call from a friend that Leininger had called and was snooping around. Even though I still wanted to verify some facts – and try to talk with the Administration – who btw blew me off then later tried to belittle me for not having an accurate sumation – I ran the post anyway. When I read Leininger’s column, it was pretty much word for word what I’d taken to the councilman.
I had about the same thing happen a month later and needless to say I don’t consult with the cm any further. All Leininger is, at times, is a mouth piece for this cm who frankly does nothing but stir the pot.
Oh well, that’s the mainstream, accepted media!