Gawker: valleywag, steven vaughan-nichols

eWeek wins cut-and-paste contest

Paul Boutin — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:00:17 EST

Despite a plug from Jim Romenesko's widely-read blog for overly serious journalists, not a single reporter has stepped up to collect Valleywag's $100 prize for anyone willing to back eWeek editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols' claim that "all reporters" cut and paste whole paragraphs from press releases into their articles without noting it to readers. We don't care that he's lazier than us, but we do find it creepy that Novell publicists are writing parts of eWeek. No biggie, though: Valley workers already claim they knew it all along.

Hey, reporters! It's a contest just for you

Paul Boutin — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:47:55 EST

When a reporter gets called out for doing something questionable, such as eWeek senior editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols running Novell press releases as his articles, there's usually at least the appearance of concern at the publication. You know: Whoops, sorry for the misunderstanding. But eWeek has let Vaughan-Nichols dismiss complaints as some sort of grudge by another writer who posted a dozen or so examples of directly cut-and-pasted paragraphs. Grudge or no, what I see is eWeek — whose 400,000-plus readers include a lot of senior tech people I hang out with — publishing statements written by Novell publicists in a way that makes them look like eWeek's independent findings and analysis to me. Vaughan-Nichols claims it's OK: "Like all reporters, I write stories based on press releases." Like all reporters? I'll send a $100 iTunes gift certificate to the first reporter besides Vaughan-Nichols who posts 3 links in the comments to his or her own work, each of which contains at least one paragraph provably lifted without attribution from a press release, to which you must also point. Or heck, just email 3 links to paul@valleywag.com and I'll post 'em for you.

eWeek reporter runs press releases as his articles

Paul Boutin — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:51:25 EST

Ziff-Davis senior editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is a publicist's dream. As documented a dozen times here and here and just now here by Fake Steve Jobs blogger (and sharp-minded Forbes editor) Dan Lyons, Vaughan-Nichols copies large swatches of press releases from Novell and other tech vendors into his articles on eWeek's Linux-Watch site. You might think this amounts to blatant plagiarism and copyright infringement, but you'd be wrong.

This is Novell's prayers answered — a "reporter" who writes exactly what they tell him to. Vaughan-Nichols is a lazy genius: He's figured out a way to earn his salary by cutting and pasting content no one's going to complain about. In fact, he's probably the least headache for his own editor, since none of the companies he writes about ever call to complain that he got it wrong. Here's an idea for publicists: Stick a giant Creative Commons license atop all your press releases. See how many grateful bloggers take the hint and finally, finally run your talking points unsoiled by any of their error-prone original reporting.