Posts Tagged ‘Ethics’

This post has been inspired by the following website, who seems to be gaining in popularity (noted by their retweets and link-backs they show in comments below posts, etc.) and has obviously made a habit of not quoting any of their sources in any of their articles (and, at the time of this posting, has failed to quote my work): windows8news.com (Be careful not to trip and fall over any of their gazillion ads when the page loads)

Part of the benefit of doing this for a hobby is that I can break away from my regular format to rant and rave. I try to keep it to a minimum, but I have managed to be irked for the last time by something that TREMENDOUSLY… well, irks me, I suppose:

People who run, “news sites” and neglect to quote their sources.

Yes, I know it happens and I know it’s just a big pain in the ass that you have to deal with if you generate any number of sufficient traffic or make a name for yourself, but I’m the little guy on the totem pole here. I’m the guy with no corporate backing or any kind of incentive to do the things I do, other than incentives *I* create and because I enjoy doing them. Sure, I’ve got a couple of ads on the site, but those are incentives I’ve created that give back to me just a little bit. I don’t get paid to do this stuff and – contrary to how it may seem – I put a *lot* of time, hard work, and dedication into formulating and carrying out the methods I’ve personally developed to bring unique content to everyone.

Lets face it… I enjoy making people happy! I enjoy finding content that I know I’m the *only* person in the Microsoft news community to have at that very moment and posting it to my website for everyone to check out. I never have and I never will post on this site anything that has been given to me in confidence, without permission. Even with that in mind, the ratio of content posted from what was given to me versus content posted from what I’ve dug up is about 3% to 97%. Now, it’s not that I expect people to thank me for doing something I choose to do myself in the first place; far from it. I essentially fulfill a specific niche and most people pass on through with a, “ah, good to know” while they’re sitting at work and that’s great.

However, I *do* happen to follow a certain set of ethics when posting. If I find something from a source I want to remain confidential, I won’t post that source. The difference is, such a source isn’t another news site or someone who is going to feel just like I do about right now. Conversely, if I find something of interest on another person’s site that I deem worthy of reposting, I will absolutely do as such and their site will be properly credited (usually, many times throughout the post as I like to be gratuitous with the credit I give). If you’re unfamiliar with this, I’m not just bitching about some no-name, so ‘n so ripping off news from my site. No, there are strategic motives to not quoting references:

Traffic and Money, Money, Money: Yes, some people will do any and every underhanded thing they can to gain traffic or make even $0.01 off an ad click. What better than to rip-off the bleeding edge of news and make it look like you’re the source! You get away with duping however many viewers and they are none-the-wiser. After all, it’s not their job to care about where the information came from!

Popularity: Traffic and ad clicks are one thing, but popularity is where it’s at. Popularity happens when you can cease to care about the fluctuations in traffic… when your site still draws big numbers even if you don’t post anything for a while, etc. Without naming anyone specific, there are a number of websites around the web who have built a successful business model off of dodgily referencing sources just to keep all the traffic and build popularity. Personally, I don’t see too much discernment between those who don’t and those who intentionally work off of said business model.

In particular, I’m referencing what is known as, “link-building” and it works like this:

Post 1: I post something that’s hot-off-the-presses and I gratuitously link to the website where the information originated.

Post 2: Said website posts more information that’s relevant to the information they posted previously. I then cook up another post with the latest information, except this time, I only reference them in a hyperlink somewhere in the write-up. That’s just fine and dandy; we’re still giving credit where credit is due.

Post 3: Once more, our source for information posts yet another update. This time, I take the information they posted, re-word it, and post it on my site… but instead of linking to them, I link to one of MY previous posts and say it’s something that I previously reported on! Rinse and repeat this process however many posts thereafter and you’ve effectively washed out your source where, sure, if someone clicks through all the link-backs, they’ll eventually get to post 1 or 2 where the source was referenced, but by then, posts 1 and 2 are old news!

Now, that may not seem like a big deal, but if the news I’m grabbing is from the little guy somewhere and I’m Mr. big and popular website, then I’m the one who is going to end up landing all the traffic, credit, and (as I noted, this is a business model; not just a popularity contest) ad clicks.

So, there you have it! Some of the ugliness associated with being a journalist in this community (and, more specifically, a hobby journalist who’s easy to steal information from). You know, I hate it as much as the next person, but people tag their images for a reason. I don’t like doing it and I try not to do it, but it never fails to bite me in the ass when I don’t, so… apologies to those of you who hate watermarks; they’re an unfortunate necessity from here on out for me. And while I suspect that only those who can truly be empathetic with me will understand the conviction I am writing this post with, at the risk of sounding like a whiney baby, let me stand as the one to say for myself and every other journalist out there who puts the time, dedication and hard work into providing their content that:

People who don’t quote their sources deserve to be hit by a bus are the pond scum of this profession/hobby and I will make no bones about being a first-rate a-hole to any and all who exercise such a lack of courtesy and acknowledgment. That is all.

Thank you and good day!

-Stephen