So, I know many readers here also read Boing Boing, so most of you will be familiar with the big story that’s been breaking over there (and Wired) about the guy who created a fake boarding pass generator: the web page was taken offline, he was visited by the FBI, and then the FBI ransacked his place when he was gone (albeit with a warrant).
Story background is here; the follow up about the warrant is here.
Now take a close look at Xeni’s first post. Then look at how Brian Krebs at the Washington Post lifted this item, from her post graf for graf, element for element — in order of information delivery — a day later, zero credit. It’s kind of funny, especially since it’s such a watered-down version of the BB story. Also note how there’s no credit for story sources (like the OBVIOUS Boing Boing credit in this case), and the BB posts are dripping with credits, previous posts on the topic, and with links to everyone else covering the story. The very least WaPo could do is an “also seen @”, which we do at Fleshbot when an item is seen elsewhere at the same time. This is very instructive — this is how WE report stories in the blogosphere as opposed to old media, where stories come from thin air and then grow stale with no updates and no *active* community-generated information sharing and dissemination with its reporting. Watch this, I think there’s a lot to learn here.
That’s old media for ya — and they say bloggers don’t report real news, nor are we journalists.
We lead, they follow.
Yeah, don’t credit us old media, but don’t think we’re not watching you — *all* of us.
Update: Brian Krebs from the Washington Post responds to my post — after the jump.
Update 2 (10/29): Sean Bonner takes this and runs with it, roasting Krebs + MSM. You want to read this, snip:
“Krebs has now posted comments on the WaPo as well as on this post admitting that both BoingBoing broke the story and that he didn’t credit them for it.” (…)
“But more importantly – Why does any of this matter? It matters because people still assume blogs aren’t covering real issues. It matters because this is a perfect example of bloggers doing serious work, breaking stories and reporting on things that major media hasn’t even picked up on and other people piggy backing on that and taking all the credit. It matters because BoingBoing is not indexed by Google News, the WaPo is. With no mention of BB in the WaPo story Krebs gets all the credit and all the links. It matters because Google’s reason for not indexing BoingBoing is that they only cover stories other people are talking about. It matters because when bloggers make mistakes they actively work to correct them, yet when a reporter for the Washington Post neglects to mention who did the work to actually break a story he thinks all he has to do is leave a comment saying ‘A thousand pardons.'”
Read Sean’s entire dissection of WaPo/Krebs’ story-snagging in Washington Post totally rips off BoingBoing.
And, Metblogs DC is now covering this as a live story, discovering errors in Krebs’ reported timing (among other things) in WaPo Vs. BoingBoing?
Update 3: Quinn Norton defends Brian Krebs’ actions here. Fot the record, I don’t know Krebs and for me he could really be anyone in this situation. To me, it’s not about him. Meanwhile, I’m getting tons of mail about it, all in support except for the one from Quinn. A good example is this one:
Subject: Bravo on the WP ripoff
Hi there. Long-time, first-time.
Loved your smacking the Washington Post over Brian Krebs’ blantant thievery. The broader problem is that story-stealing from bloggers is considered perfectly OK at pretty much every level of the paper. (Ironic considering that they pioneered that Technorati bit.) This is nothing new for the Washinton Post.
(…) Here’s my post that the WP stole. At the top of my post is a link to the Post’s theft. I think it’s still active. Then a day or so later, here’s Fishbowl DC documenting it.
(…) One other thing: After reading the long timeline at MetblogsDC, BB, etc., I had one absurdly straightforward thought: NONE of this would have taken off if the (arrogant) WP had hat-tipped BB/Xeni in the first place. It would have been honest, it would have been simple — and it would have taken about five words.
Tyler Green
Editor, Modern Art Notes (at ArtsJournal)
“The most influential of all visual-arts blogs.” — Wall Street Journal”
Tyler brings up an excellent point. What *was* the right way to do this? In my opinion, just like this.
Also, check this email out:
Subject: Brian Krebs
Howdy,
John Gruber at Daring Fireball dissected Brian Krebs’ crappy reporting earlier this year, related to Krebs’ articles on the purported “MacBook Wi-Fi Exploit”. One of many posts, this one is specifically about Krebs.
Looks like Krebs is a mediocre journalist who is given extra leeway by his editors because he allegedly has more technical knowledge than most.
Just one example why 95% of my news comes from blogs unaffiliated with big media, generally more quickly and accurately. I’m constantly having people tell me about “breaking news” that I knew about hours, days or weeks before big media got around to covering it.
Happy setting-back-the-clocks day, Bryan
Aaaaand… Looks like one of Wired’s blogs picked this story up today — except Ryan Singel, in the act of defending Krebs, got the story wrong. He wrote “The sideshow all started when Metroblogs co-founder Sean Bonner accused Washington Post reporter Brian Krebs of plagiarizing Xeni Jardin’s work at BoingBoing in this story.” Wups! This whole thing started here, by me, with this post, and again, again, again — I never used the “p” word. Bonner tried to correct Singel in the comments. He still hasn’t corrected himself or commented on his own attribution error. Le sigh.
* * * * * * *
The funny thing about his email is that in his email he states that I accuse him of “plagiarism” in my post; I did not. The point of this post was in large part understanding the difference between plagiarism and what Krebs did. The public face of the blogosphere is community, where the public face of old media is “the institution.” They don’t rip us off wholesale; but in pieces they can repurpose.
He complains that I don’t have comments and he can only email me; so here are his words, cut and paste:
Hello.
We don’t really know each other, but I believe you have accused me of plagiarism in my coverage of the Soghoain story, according to your blog post at:
http://www.tinynibbles.com/blogarchives/2006/10/washington_post_vs_boing_boing.html
Rather than respond in kind, I’d like to refer you to my response to another BB fan who left a similar comment on my blog:
“Sean,
I’ll admit I parachuted in on this story when a mutual friend of Mr. Soghoian’s pinged me at 6:50 p.m. last night to tell me what was going down, but “plagiarize?” I don’t think so.
I spent several hours tracking down FBI field agents, Mr. Soghoian himself, and gathering data from his blog and from other news outlets, no fewer than three of which I cite in the blog. That said, anything taken from those articles was put in double quotes and called out. The main reason I posted my story when I did was that no one who’d covered it had managed to speak with him around the time of the FBI visit and confirm that.
I saw the BoingBoing piece like everyone else, but I never read past the first paragraph. Frankly, I was more interested in the graphic they ran on the top of that post, as even though I’d mirrored Soghoian’s site before he took the form down, the PHP back-end code was not mirrored and I was unable to reproduce the boarding pass I’d generated from Chris’s site just prior to my calling him for the first time.
I had no idea that BB broke the story: had I been aware of it at the time, I’d have sourced them as the origin.
I am very careful to cite other blogs and writers when I am using or referring to their work. You, too, should be more careful before accusing reporters of such serious charges. Is there a particular paragraph or phrase or quote you’d like to call attention to?
Thanks for reading.”
I offer the same request to you: if there are particular sentences, quotes or otherwise you feel I have lifted from the BB story, please call them out and let me know. If your beef is basically that I didn’t cite BB as the original source of the story, then I’m guilty. I didn’t know they’d broken the story, but for better or worse this is not an uncommon problem when multiple reporters are working on the same story.
Btw, I tried to leave a comment/reply to your blog, but I notice you don’t accept comments. I’d be interested to know why not.
Brian Krebs
www.washingtonpost.com/securityfix
