newsonaut

Turning inner space into outer space

June 11, 2012

The tweets of outrageous fortune

A reporter in New York state was understandably angry to find that his words had been ripped off by a competing paper, and he eventually elicited an apology. But perhaps more bizarre was the way he went about it.

He alerted the competing paper and his followers via Twitter. When he didn’t get a response, he again took to Twitter and threatened to go to Romenesko.com and create a Storify of the day’s Twitter outrage.

Apparently, the editor of the competing paper does not spend his time glued to Twitter and wasn’t aware of the situation until late in the day. It was at that point that he promised to look into the matter and later apologized.

I hate plagiarism to be sure. But I have to shake my head in wonder at a reporter who apparently used Twitter as his sole means of communication. If one way doesn’t work, then try another. Sheesh.