The Importance of Credit and Attribution to Bloggers
Here's an interesting tempest in a teapot regarding Variety and Hollywood Reporter's alleged failure to properly credit bloggers for breaking news. Normally, the discussion is the reverse, major news outlets are concerned about bloggers misuse or infringement of their news, such as when the AP issued seven DMCA takedown notices to Matt Drudge last month, which led to the AP to propose setting guidelines for use of AP stories in blogs.
I think this story is important to note for two reasons: (1) Because many bloggers are not paid, particularly entertainment bloggers, credit and attribution are effectively the bloggers compensation. As a result, media organizations that plan to use news from third party bloggers should understand that bloggers will be more sensitive to these issues than "mainstream" news sources often are. (2) Many bloggers are not familiar with the culture and unwritten rules of traditional journalism which often handles failures to properly credit or attribute through an "I owe you one" type of reciprocity. As a result, many citizen journalists/bloggers will view the failure to properly credit or attribute a story as a show of disrespect for the person or blogging in general.
This once again reinforces that one has to look at the interests of the parties involved and one shouldn't assume that everyone's priorities are the same even if they seem like they are doing similar jobs.
