So in Thursday’s edition of the new paper, on the front page, top left corner:
"The S’pore cabby who cares. He’ll give 50% discount if…" and then it says to turn to page 10. I’m thinking to myself, ‘gee, this sounds familiar’. I turn to page 10. And ta-da, a two page article on the CAREBBY. Here’s a quote:
"You can call this cabby Mr Discount. And he’s a celebrity of sorts in the Internet world. Cabby Tony Eyo is a hit in local online forums and blogs."
And that’s it. No citing of sources. No mention that Hang Yong was the first to write about it, or that Tomorrow.sg was the first to pick the story up via Lancerlord on June 11th; five full days before TNP. To my mind that runs pretty close to plagiarism. If you agree, you can address your comments (civil ones, please) to the journalist responsible, Esther Au Yong (mailto:estheray@sph.com.sg).
If the story is newsworthy enough to be picked up by a print publication, then the originator of the story deserves the simple respect of a citation.
An adventure is, by nature, a thing that comes to us. It is a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose. ~G.K. Chesterton
3 comments:
It is not the first time Tomorrow stuff ended up in the papers without a credit. There was the Personals story too...
It's ok lah. At least the paper's intention was to highlight to its readers of the taxi driver's considerate acts.
It's just so lazy and dismissive not to cite. Annoys me. Like it's a nice story if someone blogs about it, but it's only serious journalism if a reporter gets it published. That really bugs me.
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