B. The practices he describes are, indeed, more common than people know. Somebody has to "get the dateline," and EVERYBODY relies on Nexis research for background. That is not plagiarism, so long as credits are properly given.
C. Want to guess how many stories datelined "Crawford, Texas" were mostly written on the plane trip from Washington and actually filed from a motel in Waco?
That's the problem: The Times, and most newspapers, don't give the credits to the freelancers and the staffers that do most of the footwork. (For those of you lucky enough to not be in the journalism industry, what we're talking about is the way that, say, a magazine like Newsweek will publish a story "by" a specific person or persons - for example, this article on Al Qaeda "by" Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman and Evan Thomas, but will also note at the end of the article (scroll down to the bottom) that several other people were involved in gathering the information needed for the main authors to write the story (in this case: "With Mark Hosenball and Tamara Lipper in Washington, Christopher Dickey in Paris, Tom Masland in Lebanon and Emily Flynn in London." Newspapers like The New York Times don't generally give a damn about the Hosenballs, Lippers, Dickeys, Maslands and Flynns, and never credit them.)
The question, of course, is why this is somehow Bragg's fault this time when The Times never gives the foot soldiers bylines. He probably is being scapegoated.
I don't disagree -- at least not too much. He's a superbly talented writer, but I have less respect for his reporting skills now than i used to.
B. The practices he describes are, indeed, more common than people know. Somebody has to "get the dateline," and EVERYBODY relies on Nexis research for background. That is not plagiarism, so long as credits are properly given.
I'm a reporter, and I rely heavily on Google and Lexis/Nexis, just as every reporter does these days. However, there's a world of difference between researching and using some general background and using "a stack 4 feet tall" of other newspaper copy, rewriting the color those reporters put into their stories, and passing it off as your own work. That is what Bragg admitted to doing to write the Pulitzer Prize-winning lead he can still recite by heart. It's a beautfully written and powerful lead, but it is tainted because he didn't actually see these maimed people -- OTHER REPORTERS DID, and he used their descriptions to fool the readers of the NYTimes that he did all the shoe-leather for that story. Such a technique is not that far removed from what Jayson Blair did. At least Rick got on a plane, though.
C. Want to guess how many stories datelined "Crawford, Texas" were mostly written on the plane trip from Washington and actually filed from a motel in Waco?
If that's the truth, shame on those reporters. I work for a national newspaper, and such chicanery is not our policy, and I would never do that.
The Times has always been a favorite target of FReepers, but it has never been the only one. "Common practice" allows a lot of trash to be published.
Some years ago my wife and sister had a front page spread in the food section of the local paper. They were making gingerbread houses -- not exactly an intellectual challenging or controversial activity -- and the reporter simply made up the story, completely ignoring what was said in the interview.
I have seen the same thing happen in numerous "small" stories where I had first hand knowledge of the facts.
I have no faith whatsoever in the ability of the press to get anything right.
I do believe that over time and with competition, something of the truth emerges, but not because the press gets it right.
B. The practices he describes are, indeed, more common than people know. Somebody has to "get the dateline," and EVERYBODY relies on Nexis research for background. That is not plagiarism, so long as credits are properly given.
C. Want to guess how many stories datelined "Crawford, Texas" were mostly written on the plane trip from Washington and actually filed from a motel in Waco?
A: He's no Gene Fowler, nor even a Will Fowler, and he's no Keyes Beech or Ernie Pyle. But there are few of the level of the Fowlers' or Beech to be found in present-day American journalism. And today's military neither wants nor deserves an Ernie Pyle.
B. Concur. And once a public figure gives an attributed quote to another reporter, reuse of that source, with or without attribution of the original report is also fair game, as the event has passed from spot news into the *first draft* of history, e.g. Nixon's *I am not a crook*.
C. Most. Though it's also not uncommon that earlier research from that rural location may not be rewritten and filed until after a little cleanup in more reasonable surroundings or better conditions, and either dateline is usable. And I've filed a dateline of a town hit by a tornado without setting foot in it, though I overflew the scene in a National Guard helocopter.
But all phone lines were down and no vehicles were moving till the next morning's dawn; I don't think it was an inappropriate fudge. And the facilities in some remote corners can be really incompatable with deadline work.
I can recall a conversation I had in the 1980's with one Holiday Inn manager when I asked her if they had a fax machine...*No,* I was told, but we do have a Coke machine....
Whether she was really trying to be helpful or not, affiant sayeth not; but she kept a straight face, anyway. And when I read my copy over the phone to the poor dear lady who handled the rewrite desk for me, theur town got no dateline from me.
-archy-/-