Who is the best copycat of them all? Bloggers or mainstream media?
Bloggers are often accused to blaisely lifting material from 'primary' media like magazines, newspapers, T.V and radio and are therefore merely 'derivative'- as described by Malcolm Gladwell, who himself is a blogger but also writes for The New Yorker. Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson quoted Malcolm Gladwell as having said, "Blogs, which are mostly written by amateurs, couldn't possibly do what We Do. Instead, they mostly just comment on what we do, supplying low-value-add chatter about our stories that must not be confused with Proper Journalism or other Quality Content from us Professionals."I have to say I agree with Gladwell. And like Gladwell says, I don't even think there is something especially bad about being a derivative. As long as I have something independent to say on that 'primary' story and have cited the original reference, I would in fact welcome some one doing all the legwork for me.
But, even Gladwell won't accuse majority of the blogging community, especially not the established ones, for committing plagiarism. Most would almost always link back to the original reference. Alas, the same cannot be said of mainstream 'primary' media. In India for instance, T.V channels routinely fail to name the channel who first broke the story. They will usually maintain a studied silence on the entire story, if they can help it. If the news item has to be mentioned, they will rather die than give credit to their competitor for discovering it. Bloggers on the other hand, almost instinctively, link back to the original source.
And this is not just an Indian disease. Take the example of a recent story NEWSWEEK broke on the health benefits of Resveratrol, in terms of arresting ageing (Issue dtd- Dec11th'06). The story was in fact written by one of the Harvard researchers, who had worked on the project, for NEWSWEEK. CNN (Not CNN-IBN) did a story on the same topic and telecast it in Asia, today. Did they 'link back' to NEWSWEEK, at least in passing? Are you kidding? CNN is part of the TIME Warner group which also has TIME, NEWSWEEK'S arch rival, in its bouquet. They telecast the story as if they had unearthed it.
If international marquee' names like CNN engage in this kind of behavior, why blame the poor little blogger surviving on Google Adsense dole?
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