Did the newspaper list their sources for the story? What is wrong with saying “sources tell us” if it’s true and the source doesn’t want to be named. I’ve known that to happen quite often.

I’m not saying KSAT didn’t rip off the newspaper story, I’m just saying the newspaper guy should have some positive proof before slinging mud in the paper. It’s sounds to me like he’s had a problem with those guys and just doesn’t like them.

if you guys ever find that remote, please award it to Been There, Done That as a memento.

If that doesn’t work for you, consider this: I worked as a print reporter for several years and as the managing editor of a TV station web site for several years. I’ve had the probably-not-unique pleasure of both having my work ripped off by TV hacks and witnessing TV hacks ripping off material from newspaper web sites and competing TV station web sites. Take it from me — it happens. Constantly. I’ve seen TV stations that would have to go to color bars if the local newspaper suddenly ceased operations.

Thievery is thievery, bottom line. But all too often, the problem on the TV side is a lack of adequate staffing. Most folks don’t want to steal stories. Most folks would rather have enough reporters to get all of the news on their own. That’s an explanation, but not an excuse.

One thing I’ve never been able to figure out: What is TV’s hang-up with citing the local newspaper as a source? Don’t the TV guys have much bigger problems to worry about? I can understand not wanting to cite a competing station as a source, but TV guy acts as if the viewer is going to turn off the TV if he says, “The Pleasantville Gazette is reporting…” Have you ever done that? Has anyone? At worst, a viewer might change the channel, but he’s not going to hoist his arse off the couch to find a newspaper, so why not cite the newspaper as the source? We work in the industry, so we’re hyper-aware of what comes out of a guy’s mouth on TV. But for the average story on the average day, the average viewer isn’t sitting on his couch and saying, “Ha. Those losers at the TV station got their asses handed to them by the newspaper again.”

We had this problem a few years ago where the AP was lifting copy directly off of our website without attribution. I complained to the AP, asking that they either give us credit or stop lifting our stories. And to their credit, they took action — they stopped running our stories.

I guess that’s how much it would have pained them to credit a TV station.

For me, if a story that we enterprised moves on the AP wire and shows up on a competing site across the street in a couple hours, I don’t give a hoot if they attribute it or not. Everyone who reads that story on that site is stealing a pageview away from me. They should LINK me, not copy-paste my story from the AP.

This is a severe problem that needs to be fixed.

A similar problem is emerging with the affiliate feed services. Why should I feed out a terrific video clip just to see it appear on CNN.com and score a 250,000 video views of which I don’t see a penny? Pretty soon, local affiliates will stop feeding great stuff out.

Stay tuned on all this.

Did KSAT claimed they broke the story?

If the story appeared on the AP wire, the station could report it without attributing to the AP. As you said, Cory, it’ll be interesting how these turf wars develop. Local websites frequently post AP stories which are essentially rewrites of newspaper stories.

Last week I had an exclusive interview, which the local paper lifted quotes from and published on their website, without name-checking our station.

To be honest, I wouldn’t have been that bothered, if it hadn’t been for the fact that we actually emailed the paper the photos they used on their website - and on their front page!