Hartford Courant: It's All About Plagiarism

To keep up with the changing media, I decided to find an article to write about that is relevant to the struggling newspaper industry. I immediately came across an article about the Hartford Courant. I had just saw a TV commercial from the Hartford Courant that was showing their "newly added sections" into the paper, so I assumed that they were trying to get more readers interested to keep the paper alive. When I clicked on the article, I could not believe what it was saying. The headline was "Hartford Courant sued by another paper for Plagiarism." This didn't make sense to me! I had just saw a commercial for the newspaper and thought they were making an effort to get their paper back on track.

My first instinct was "Wow, now that is embarrassing." I thought this because the Hartford Courant is the oldest newspaper in America. They've always been looked up to for basically starting print journalism. The Hartford Courant brought the news to where it is today. You'd think that such a prestigious paper would write their own articles and not rely on another newspaper's articles.

This whole issue began over the summer when locals were noticing similar articles in the Courant and in the Journal Inquirer. The Journal Inquirer is "Northern Connecticut's Hometown Paper" that competes with the Courant. The Courant also used articles from the Bristol Press, The New Britain Herald, Torrington Register-Citizen, and Waterbury Republican-American. The Journal Inquirer has posted on their website that they will be seeking damages, attorney's fees, and punitive damages.

I noticed a comment on that article from a guy named Lou. What he said made total sense to me and I would agree with it.

Lou wrote on Nov 19, 2009 11:55 AM:
"While I do like the Courant, they seem to be spiraling downward...between their dispute with Mr. Gombossy and this issue, the COurant is becoming almost Titanic like.

The newspaper plagiarizing other articles makes me not want to read their paper. They should write their own articles like other newspapers do. This is not the way you try to save your paper. Plagiarizing?! That's just dumb, it gives your paper a bad name. Whether they really plagiarized or not, it still makes me look down on them.

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Social Bookmarking: A Fast, Easy, and Growing Trend!

When I first started this project, I really didn't know what I was researching. The name "Social Bookmarking," is pretty self explanatory. I assumed "Social" means you can interact and comment with other people over the web. I assumed the Bookmarking part had to do with marking sites so you don't forget them. After viewing a few different articles on what it is, I understand why it is becoming popular.

Social Bookmarking is the practice of saving bookmarks to a public website and the ability to tag them with keywords. Basically, it is "bookmarking" a site publically, so it is easily accessed by anyone. Social Bookmarking is done on a social bookmarking site such as digg.com or delicious.com where you can save articles into your favorites on that site. For example, a professor at a university wants to show an article to his students. He saves it to his Digg account, where it can then be accessed from anywhere. If the professor had saved it to the bookmarks on his own computer, he would not have been able to access it from another computer. One of the main reasons why people social bookmark is because of the social aspect of it. On Digg.com, people can interact with other people based on the articles they've bookmarked. Therefore, you can talk to someone who likes reading the same things as you.

I personally don't social bookmark (..yet) and feel like it changing the way the internet is used. As the internet changes, more and more things are relating to "social." The internet is making things faster and easier, and its also allowing you to interact with people with similar interests. Social Bookmarking makes things saving URLs easy, while making it fun at the same time. Doing this research made me realize how much easier life is getting. It is getting to the point where we don't even need email anymore. Social Bookmarking can be very similar to Social Networking becuase you're instantly connecting with people from all over the world. After looking through multiple social bookmarking sites, Digg was definitley my favorite because it showed the "most popular" articles of the day. It knows this because people "digg" the articles they like. It shows what is popular right now. I like how social bookmarking is so instant and easy. It makes life a tad bit easier...

This google document is a presentation I did in class. If you want to find out more on social bookmarking, this powerpoint sums it up to make it easier to understand. It also shows (the very few) downsides to social bookmarking. My research page shows very detailed research on the topic and also has our cited sources.


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A 2-Day Layoff Spree by Time Inc.

As I was looking through my Google Reader, I came across a newly posted article on the New York Times' media blog called Media Decoder. Media Decoder was my original blog that I used to get research, and it continues to post things that are very relevant to my topic. I came across a post about Time Inc. issueing that they will be laying off 280 people. As I continued to scroll, I noticed a whole series of posts just relating to the layoffs. A blogger was continuously updating posts as she found new information.

On November 3, 2009, a Media Decoder blogger, Stephanie Clifford, posted an article about the job cuts. It didn't have definite statistics and was a very general post mentioning that the cuts were going to start at the Sports Illustrated. It did mention that 15-20 employees were laid off just that night, right around when she posted the blog. The post also mentioned that they were predicting more job cuts for the next day. Laying off all these people will save the incorporation over $100 million. At 10:13 am the next day, she posted a much longer blog mentioning why there will be so many job cuts. The blogger said there will be no magazines being cut and these job cuts will save the company millions of dollars. She followed this by saying that there was going to be a 10:30 conference call from Time Inc. giving more information. At 12:07 that day, Stephanie posted another blog updating people on the reasons for the cuts and how the magazine is doing with it's renevue. There were a few more continuous blogs about the job cuts because it was an ongoing issue throughout the day.

One of the points I'm making is that the same blogger posted blogs throughout the day to update people on the issue. In a newspaper, you wouldn't be able to hear the changes in the story because once it is in print, it can't be changed. Someone who reads the paper in the morning wouldn't know that there were changes or updates in the story.

I also decided to write about the 280 Time job cuts because it makes me nervous about the future. I hope to someday work for a magazine, and it never really crossed my mind that magazines were doing bad too. To me, 280 job cuts is too many, and it is a scary number. The economy and the vast internet makes me nervous about the future. The only reason why I'm not totally nervous because maybe the magazines will move to the internet. You will always need someone to write the news. This issue relates to my topic about the changing media, but it also relates to the economy and how it is affecting our lives.

Photo Credit: Time Magazine uploaded by zawmyonaing