Three months ago, I broke a big story in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. I reported that Abramoff's ex-partner Michael Scanlon was implicated in the scandal by his jilted lover and former fiancee, Emily Miller, who met Scanlon when the two worked as press aides for Congressman Tom DeLay. I spent four months fleshing out this story. I spoke to a dozen people in Washington who told me how this went down. In the end, I discovered that Miller spoke to the FBI after Scanlon broke off their engagement and started dating another woman. It was an important story. It had all the makings of a Hollywood thriller. My story was published on the Internet magazine, Raw Story. It received some play on the Net and in indpendent media circles. Some mainstream publication reporters acknowledged the good work in private emails to my editor, John Byrne. However, it was never picked up or republished by any of the traditional publications.
Today, the Wall Street Journal published a front-page "exclusive" that basically recycled my story from January without mentioning that it was first reported by me or that I broke the story wide open. I spoke to two Journal editors in New York. They acknowledged this morning that they read my story and assigned a reporter to follow it up. But they refuse to credit me for first reporting it.
I work tirelessly on reports like this. Often times my reports are not taken seriously by the very people who are supposed to champion the independent media because my work does not appear in so-called reputable publications such as the Journal. The Valerie Plame leak is a perfect example. This isn't a case of sour grapes. It's about giving credit where credit is due. Even if the Journal printed something as benign as "this story was first reported by a website" would have been sufficient.
I spent more than 10 years working for the mainstream media. Ironically, I spent two years as the bureau chief of the Journal's sister outfit, Dow Jones Newswires. I know what goes on behind the scenes and I know what the reporters think of the independent media. We're crap. Hopefully, this will give some pause to those who think I, and other independent journalists, aren't capable of scooping the sh*t out of the big media.
Jason asks you to read both articles and ends with, " Need I say more?"
This is an issue that lately seems to be occurring with greater frequency. Josh Marshall is angry. So is Larissa at Raw Story.
When blogs investigate and first report a news story, the MSM should credit them if any of the blog's reporting is used in the story. The MSM should not claim an "exclusive" if its author has read an earlier article on the same subject by a blogger. The same goes for analysis of an event. If an MSM reporter gets their understanding of a story from a blogger's analysis and repeats it, the blogger should be credited.
Bloggers routinely link to MSM articles that led them to write about an event or to write a follow-up. The MSM needs to do the same. Some papers are beginning to understand this. For example, earlier this week:
It's a start, but the Associated Press and Wall St. Journal and other publications need to follow suit.
