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(are you kidding me)

Ryan Foster Professor Rosemary Armao AJRL 225 Media Law & Ethics 13 November 2011

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Jim Romenesko, creative journalist, news editor, social media pioneer, and currently unemployed. Last week Romenesko resigned from his position running the Romenesko blog for The Poynter Institute, after questions were raised about questionable attribution within his blog post, a technical infraction of Poynter Institute guidelines. According to Poynter, The Romenesko blog was responsible for highlighting the most interesting journalism issues of the day.(MOOS 1) The blog was not responsible for covering the issues, the blog would act as a news aggregate. The inquiry was brought to the attention of Romeneskos boss Julie Moos, through Erika Fry, assistant editor at the Columbia Journalism Review. I now know that Jim Romeneskos posts exhibit a pattern of incomplete attribution. Though information sources have always been displayed prominently in Jims posts and are always linked at least once (often multiple times), too many of those posts also included the original authors verbatim language without containing his or her words in quotation marks, as they should have, says Fry. (FRY) In response to Frys allegations, Moos released a statement on Poynter.org expressing her concerns about the blogging process Romenesko had practiced. In her daily Poynter column Moos said,
Though information sources have always been displayed prominently in Jims posts and are always linked at least once (often multiple times), too many of those posts also included the original authors verbatim language without containing his or her words in quotation marks, as they should have One danger of this practice is that the words may appear to belong to Jim when they in fact belong to another. This style represents Jims deliberate choice to be transparent about the informations origins while using the sources own words to represent his or her work. If only for quotation marks, it would be exactly right. Without those quotation marks, it is

incomplete and inconsistent with our publishing practices and standards on Poynter.org Effective immediately, Jims work for Poynter will change in a few important respects. First, it will follow our standards of attribution. Second, it will be edited before it is published. I asked Jim Wednesday night to refrain from publishing while we sorted out this situation, and he has done so.(MOOS 2)

Moos was methodical in acknowledging the intent of Romenesko, but concluded his practices were inappropriate. Moos failed to realize what impact her public embarrassment of Romenesko would have for The Poynter Institute. Romenesko is renowned for his pure ability to generate page views for the Poynter blog, all blogs he maintains for that matter, so why would his superiors publicly accuse him of plagiarism? In the field of journalism, having a record of plagiarizing stories can destroy a journalists reputation, or worse their career. That question may never get an answer, but what is certain is that, in an e-mail to The Washington Post, Romenesko said, he is leaving Poynter. [he] thought it was best to leave Poynter after these imperfect attribution charges were leveled against me. My heart was no longer in the job. I wondered if they were trying to discredit me so advertisers wouldnt touch me.(FARHI) Some critics feel that Romenesko has disregarded journalistic standards since the inception of his Poynter blog, and that the repercussion from Poynter should be deemed appropriate. Romeneskos lack of attribution, mostly as it pertains to punctuation, is the only true argument against him. According to the Poynter guidelines, We credit the authors and creators of the various forms of journalism we publish. We apply appropriate scrutiny to work by staff and contributing writers to prevent plagiarism, intentional or otherwise. We do not intentionally mislead with words or images. We do not deliberately

deceive as we gather information.(MOOS 2) According to these guidelines, Romenesko is guilty of plagiarism. He wasnt fulfilling Poynters mission of excellence to the field of journalism. Romeneskos blog posts were ridden with aesthetic tribulations. We can all understand that the lack in quotation is considered plagiarism, but were the physical hyperlinks to the original story content sufficient? And if not, why he was allowed to practice these techniques the day he began working for Poynter; furthermore, common sense should allow readers, especially journalist, to see that Romenesko has only made one mistake, and it was not plagiarism. He tried to relay too much information, without adequate time. Jim Romenesko aggregated countless impactful, well-written stories, for the e-reader to access within the Poynter blog that may have never gotten readership without his assistance. I pose for you, a question, Are the missing quotation marks from the Poynter blog so important that Romenesko, as an aggregator only, should spend more time formatting his punctuation, than collecting additional content to generate readership? I firmly believe that we should exert more energy in interpreting the information we read, than criticizing how it looks. We use social media and blogs to relay news for many reasons, but one of the most imperative reasons is speed. Social media and blogs allow us to send and receive information instantaneously. Assuming that job efficiency coincides with the amount of accessible content, it is understandable why Romenesko was in search for articles, and not caught up in the rules of publication. It is as though some of the rules that applied to print journalism prove to be detrimental to digital journalism, in terms of efficiency. If only the newspaper could experience a hyperlink... maybe it would understand. In the end, Poynter has lost one of their most important social media employees, and now they have an even bigger problem than

missing quotation marks. Jim Romenesko has plans to start a new blog, without Poynter guidelines, and the funny things is, he has a whole faction ready to follow him. It will only be a matter of time before Poynter realizes the pure genius of Romenesko, and how his new project will surely compete for readership with the new, Romenesko-less, Poynter MediaWire. It is unfortunate how events unfold sometimes, but at the end of the day it is sheer stupidity on behalf of all parties involved that caused such a ruckus. Maybe blogging procedural guidelines need to be revised for online accuracy and efficiency. Maybe journalistic institutions should treat their employees with the dignity and respect they rightfully deserve. Maybe we as the consumer drive the media to make mountains out of molehills for. Last, but not least. Maybe we just need to remember the (quotation marks).

Works Cited Moos, Julie. "Introducing Poynters MediaWire." Poynter. 10 Nov. 2011. The Poynter Institute. 14 Nov. 2011 < http://www.poynter.org/latestnews/mediawire/152964/introducing-poynters-mediawire/> Fry, Erika. "The Romenesko Saga : CJR." Behind The News. 11 Nov. 2011. Columbia Journalism Review. 14 Nov. 2011 <http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_romenesko_saga.php?page=all>. Moos, Julie. "Questions over Romeneskos Attributions Spur Changes in Writing, Editing." Poynter. The Poynter Institute, 10 Nov. 2011. Web. 14 Nov. 2011.<http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/152802/questions-overromeneskos-attributions-spur-changes-in-writing-editing/>. Farhi, Paul. "Media Blogger Jim Romenesko Resigns from Poynter - The Washington Post." The Washington Post. N.p., 10 Nov. 2011. Web. 14 Nov. 2011. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/media-blogger-jim-romeneskoresigns-from-poynter/2011/11/10/gIQAE0RSAN_story.html>.