Chronicle should have stuck with AP copy on Martinez stay
With the recent revelation that a conservative blogger hired by the Washington Post was actually a plagiarist (a story carried in today's Chronicle), it's probably worth asking what constitutes legitimate use of wire copy in crafting a newspaper story, and what amount of borrowing requires a journalist to note that a wire service (or other external source) contributed to the report.
Today's case in point concerns a story in today's Chronicle by Zeke Minaya that does not credit the AP. Here is "Minaya's" lede:
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday held up the execution of Raymond Leon Martinez, who was slated to die Tuesday for the 1983 killing of a Houston bar owner.
And here is the lede from Matt Curry's AP story that preceded "Minaya's" story on Chron.com (and elsewhere):
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today put off the execution of Raymond Martinez, who was scheduled to die Tuesday for the 1983 slaying of a Houston bar owner.
Does changing two words and adding a middle name REALLY get Minaya around the need to credit AP reporter Matt Curry for contributing to "Minaya's" report?
"Minaya's" reporting is also made weaker by the fact that the Chronicle chose not to reproduce Curry's description of Martinez's brutal crimes, a description that logically should have followed the quotation from Harris County Assistant District Attorney Lynn Hardaway in "Minaya's" story.
In short, the local reporter appears to have borrowed the AP writer's lede without proper attribution, and the final report omitted detail that gave the story more of a local context. The newspaper would have been better off sticking with the AP copy, lede and all.
BACKGROUND: Here is an example of the Chronicle crediting the AP's contribution to a story.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/25/06 02:37 PM | Print |
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