At least guardian.co.uk now attributes the stories it merrily rips off from other websites after Roy Greenslade wrongly suggested that the Telegraph was busy scraping rivals’ pages for content.
Today, the Telegraph carries an exclusive story about comments made by the British ambassador to the US, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, about the supposed aloofness of Barack Obama.
The Guardian ripped the story off at just after midnight:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/03/uselections2008.barackobama2
The Times scraped it soon after with no attribution:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4871276.ece
The Independent ripped it off - unattributed - at 1am and, in a nice touch, also ripped off the Telegraph’s resume of Sir Nigel’s career:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-is-uninspiring-says-british-ambassador-to-america-949853.html
It’s little wonder the papers don’t properly attribute blog sources then?
Matt makes a good point - it’s been such a habit for years for papers to refuse to acknowledge that they’ve ripped pieces off - er, made them available for their readers - that as a culture it changes only very, very slowly. Sometimes it’s been absolutely shameless (tabloids grabbing entire interviews).
Obviously I’m shocked - shocked! - to find that everyone in Fleet Street hasn’t simply left the Tele’s story alone so it could figure prominently-ish on its site. And I’m sure it’s a relief that the Today programme etc didn’t rip it off to broadcast it. That would be *awful*.
Still, at least we all tend to leave each other’s comment pieces alone. Except, obviously, when they’re written by cabinet ministers possibly touting for a new job…