Mike Moore-One becomes two? A question of commentators ethics?
The Hive reproduces Mike Moore’s article from the NZ Herald.
Adam had read Mr Moore’s article which ran under the title – Election sermons from the Bishop Tamaki of politics - and certain phrases seemed eerily familiar.
So Adam went back and found he had read an article in The Press yesterday, also by Mike Moore called – Time Peters exposed.
Below is an extract from the beginning of the article, the left hand column is from NZ Herald and the right hand from The Press.
The highlights are where one article ‘differs’ from the other.
One for the price of two?
Now Adam has no objection to the contents of the article.
He does think it is perhaps pushing the ethical boundaries some what to have essentially the same article running in newspapers owned by different media groups within the same country.
Now if the article was run in exactly the same form in say the Dominion Post and the Press, no problem both Fairfax papers.
This was not the case.
The article ran under different headlines, with some minor language, punctuation and layout changes once in a Fairfax paper and then in an APN paper.
Did the papers realise this?
Was he paid for one article or two?
Is this fair to the readers of the papers?
Did he sell this under another heading to the ODT?
Does this happen with other commentators?
Given that the article in question covered the ethics of Winston Peters this set of circumstances is ironic to say the least.
Adam knows that one or two journalists are amongst his readers, and in a week which has seen some discussion of ethics in the media, perhaps they and others would care to comment.
Or is this an isolated case of ‘phoning it in’?
Maybe someone would like to pass this along to ‘Mediawatch’
For those who would wish to see the ‘full Mike’ so to speak mike-moore
Perhaps JP because it is at least better than bothering to read your stuff, which has become twisted with anti-National drivel lately that it reads like it has come direct from a 9th floor spin release.
Adam, As long as all those buying the article knew, and none of them had purchased the copyright, then there’s no problem.
In fact, Moore may not have been paid for all the versions published. The Herald stopped paying for op-ed page content some years ago now, and I for one stopped contributing. I’d be pissed off to hear they were paying Moore for his stuff.
If you don’t mind me asking, what were you doing reading Moore’s stuff anyway? Life’s too short.
The title is almost always the work of a sub so would be different for different papers.
On second thoughts probably not many Press readers read the Herald anyway so good luck to him
Syndication I understand, but different titles on the same piece
I don’t think it’s unethical to sell the same column to more than one outlet, whether or not they’re in the same stable providing the writer has the copyright to do so. The writer’s name is on both so he’s not trying to hide anything.
Successful columnists often syndicate their work. Cartoonists do too – Garrick Tremain’s work used to be in several different papers.
Few people get rich from writing, if they can sell a story or column more than once, good luck to them.
Thank you, you have confirmed what I thought was the legal view.
In one sense I have no problem.
Indeed, I wish I could do the same.
Yet, Adam hears many so called media commentators talking abot the need for ethics
I said journalist above, and Mike Moore isn’t one, but the law of copyright applies to anyone who writes – publication and reproduction rights are theirs unless they sell or give them away.
If a journalist holds the copyright on his/her work s/he is free to sell it to any other media subject to any restrictions agreed to as a a condition of payment.
The Press & Herald are from different stables but the paper editions serve completely different markets so I don’t see any problem with the same, or nearly the same, column appearing in both.
The differences are slight and may have been by sub editors, to fit the paper’s style or because the sub thought they improved the piece.