Winnipeg Free Press - CJOBIf you’re familiar with Winnipeg Free Press crime reporter Mike McIntyre‘s Twitter feed, you’ve no doubt stumbled upon a few tweets where he vents his frustration at local media outlets ripping off his work. As Mike has tweeted several times, he frequently finds exclusive details relating to a court case — in which he was the only one to obtain them — published in other broadcast mediums soon after the Free Press publishes it first. This is not only frustrating as a reporter, but are there no ethics left in the news business? As Mike has gone on to say, there can’t be anything legally done about this, as no one really ‘owns’ the news.

Taking the high road in his tweets, he refused to publicly name the local media outlet who was copying his work. But Free Press editor Margo Goodhand gave a big enough clue in a piece published in Saturday’s paper. The article — titled Extra! Extra! Hear all about it! — pretty much calls out the “information superstation” CJOB as being the culprit.

Goodhand goes on to say that there isn’t anything unusual about finding their original content in other places, as the Free Press has the largest newsroom in the province and accounts for 80% of the news generated in the community — some may disagree with that number. The Freep also supplies the wire services with content each night, to which the proper source is credited thereafter, something that CJOB allegedly does not do.

Realistically speaking though, it would seem a bit odd to hear at the top of the hour, “This just in to the CJOB newsroom … courtesy of the Winnipeg Free Press … yada, yada, yada.” Although, it wouldn’t be completely out of the ordinary and perhaps should be delivered that way.

Besides hearing the content that the Free Press reporters gather read over the airwaves, it has also been known to turn up on CJOB’s website from time to time. It wouldn’t be a far stretch to say that the demographic of listener the station attracts does not frequently go to their website for a daily news fix.

Getting back to giving credit where credit is due — it’s absolutely necessary and those who disagree have never created an original piece of work on their own. Not only is the Free Press experiencing this problem, but it’s something that the local blogging community has seen time and time again, especially the political and commentary bloggers. Perhaps it could be that the mainstream media feels a bit uncomfortable sourcing a blog as the original news breaker, but as Internet media evolves and takes on more of an important role in the way news is gathered and distributed, there’s nothing shameful about naming who broke the story and how the information was obtained. The public is aware of the competing news agencies, and it’s no secret that the other guy exists.

But the issue itself is much larger than just the Free Press and CJOB. Most recently, CTV broke an exclusive story on their evening newscast that Winnipeg police officers were asked to meet a quota when it came to handing out traffic tickets. Not even an hour after the newscast ended, the story was up on the Winnipeg Sun website, without any mention at all that CTV first came across these details. The next day, the other TV news stations had it up. There was not one mention that CTV was the only station to obtain the supposed memo that first made mention of the traffic ticket quota, except for here. Fact is, news is news, and giving credit seems to have gone out the window a long time ago.

In the end, it’s about playing fair and rewarding the outlet or person whose byline accompanies the story you’ve just read/watched. They’re doing their job, and deserve to be recognized for it. Period.

UPDATE: Below is a copy of the ad campaign the paper has started to run relating to this issue.

Mike McIntyre - Winnipeg Free Press Ad Campaign

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