‘The Nation’ rips off JWN story?

As I noted here on Sept 21, Mark Glaser had just then put a well-researched piece up on Online Journalism Review about the “body part porn” story that I wrote about here (and here) on JWN, almost exactly a month ago.
Glaser did a good, professional job with his piece, explaining how (with the translating help of Christiane and other JWN commenters) I helped get the story out in English. He linked to my August posts, and included material from a little interview with me.
He also had a number of other excellent interviews. His piece is certainly well worth reading. (As are my earlier ones, including the exchanges in the comments section of the first one.)
Now, I just learned that on September 22, someone called Georgre Zornick put a piece up on The Nation website, also on the “body part porn” story… without giving any acknowledgment of the role we at JWN played in getting the story out. (And indeed, with a lot less solid research and detail than Mark Glaser’s piece.)
I object strongly to the use of material found on JWN that is used by other writers without any attribution or acknowledgement at all. That, in essence, is what the “Creative Commons” licence is all about. (It’s also, by any definition, sleazy and a rip-off.)
So I ask George Zornick a simple question: Did you find out about this story yourself, directly, and if so, how? Or did you in fact read it on JWN first?
If the latter, then why no acknowledgment or attribution?
Also, I ask others who write about this issue to refer to Mark Glaser’s story on this issue, and to the role JWN — and Nur al-cubicle (see below)– had earlier played in bringing it to an English-speaking audience, rather than to continue claiming that it was George Zornick and The Nation who in any way “broke” this story inside the US discourse.

    Addendum, Sept 26, 1:15 p.m.: I went back and checked the link to the “Nur al-cubicle” post on this topic that Mark from Ireland had mentioned in a JWN comment on August 24. On that post, timestamped August 21 at 10:51 a.m., Nur provided a fairly full translation of the core Italian news article in question. So I think the laurels for publishing the first good piece about this story in English should go to HER.
    Great work, Nur al-cubicle!
    My questions to George Zornick and The Nation regarding their complete lack of any acknowledgment of existing work on this topic still stands.
    Maybe in addition to answering the questions I put to him, George should consider turning over any actual income he made from that story to the charity of Nur’s choosing?

10 thoughts on “‘The Nation’ rips off JWN story?”

  1. Helena, you should know that there was another source for this story and English translations in the blogosphere here that appeared on August 21, right about the same time. That link was picked up by Andrew Sullivan, among others.
    It doesn’t change your point, in general; Zornick writes as if the information appeared out of nowhere and gives attribution to no one, you or alternative blog source. I could be wrong but he also appears to be cribbing quotes from other stories.
    I really, really hate that sh*t. Western media used to do it to “us” all the time in Afghanistan; grabbed a story that could only have been uncovered by an Afghan and put it out there as their own (BBC, AP and Reuters were especially bad, but it seems like everyone got into the act) without attribution after it had already appeared, in English as well as local languages, and pass it off (including the quotes, which we could verify with sources had not been given to them) as their own work. It’s infuriating, I know. And for us, hard to give positive reinforcement to a struggling Afghan journalist when the Great White Hunter has taken their work to show yet again what superior knowledge and insight they have into the local situation …

  2. I wonder how much reporting is derived from someone elses work. I think there was a study of the Washington Post about ten years ago that found some large percentage (40% or 60%) of their articles were based on press releases.

  3. Hello Helen:
    Nur al-Cubicle here. I thought I might point out one of the many paths the story took.
    I was completely unaware of the posting at JWN. AFAIK, the story was originallly broken by the Italian news agency, ANSA, on a tip from an Italian blogger and subsequently picked up by the Rome Newspaper, La Repubblica and the Milan paper, Il Corriere della Sera on Sunday 21 August. I translated the Corriere story into English and put in on my blog as well as on Daily Kos.
    A writer for a popular online German magazine, Heise, Thomas Pany, picked it up for his column on 25 August in an article entitled Der viehische Krieg and linked back to me.
    Cheers,
    n.ac.

  6. Nur, hi. I went back and checked the link to your post on this topic that Mark from Ireland had told me about on August 24. On that post, you provided a fairly full translation of the Corriere della Sera article. So I think the laurels for publishing the first good piece about this story in English should go to YOU.
    I’ll correct the main post here to that effect.
    Malooga– thanks for the tip-off there. I corrected the link.

  7. Hi Helena!
    Oh my…I only meant to say that several English-speaking, Italian-reading bloggers may have come across the same info simultaneously!
    Well if Zornick pays up, in addition to the charitable contribution, we’ll make him take us to dinner, too.
    And thanks for pointing our Mark Glaser’s story…I’ll put a link to it in my post.
    Regards,
    N al C

  8. sorry, guess i didn’t add much value there … Helena, you should probably remove my original post …

  9. Maybe in addition to answering the questions I put to him, George should consider turning over any actual income he made from that story to the charity of Nur’s choosing?

    or Nur herself — after all, she’s a student. How much ramen does one have to eat, after all …?

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