On May 21, Phil Munger posted on Progressive Alaska this comment to a post from the Anchorage Daily News.
Hi Mr. Munger-Phil went on to mention that Theresa at My Fairbanks Life had gotten a similar order from the ADN about a photo she'd used. Phil did some huffing and puffing about free speech, and a bunch of us told Phil to calm down, that the ADN had copyrights and he had to respect that.
My name is Katherine Gill and I work at the Daily News. It was brought to my attention that you posted a photo of Bill Roth's on your blog. We have a copyright fee of $100 to post photos on a website. Please contact me at kgill@adn.com if you would like to proceed with paying the fee, or please remove the photo from your website.
Thank you,
Katherine Gill
So it is very curious to find that the ADN doesn't seem to respect other people's copyrights. The Alaska Ear published this story in yesterday's paper.
This is also on the ADN Website.
Dennis tells me that he was not asked nor did he give permission for the ADN to use the picture. Furthermore, the ADN has his link wrong - AlaskaReportS.com instead of Alaskareport.com.
Dennis has this posted at the bottom of his blog:
Dennis Zaki Blog - AlaskaReport © 2008 All Rights Reserved.Now, I understand that people can make mistakes now and then. I mistype often, but Dennis says this is not the first time.
ADN consistantly uses my cartoons yet always manages to foul up the link to my website. And they NEVER put a hotlink up there, unlike to other websites. I've written to them, but it keeps happening... Sean references my site a lot by saying, 'a website'.So ADN, can you please explain what appears to be a double standard where you feel it's ok for you to use Dennis' copyrighted material, but you don't want other people to use yours? Perhaps there is more to this story that you can share with us.
In the same column, the Ear writes about the Baranof Hotel offering sure reservations and discounted rates in contradiction to what Representatives said in the ADN story about some Representatives sleeping in their offices. Readers of this blog know that I had that story last Monday and on Tuesday I posted the emails the Ear refers to.
I want to make it clear that the Ear got the information independently. When I asked the Baranof manager why he didn't have room for the legislators, he told me about the offer. He hadn't seen the story, but after I brought it to his attention, he called the ADN to fill them in on the other side of the story. They sent him to Sheila Toomey who writes the Ear.
Continuing to "huff and puff":
ReplyDeleteI thought Toomey might be ripping you off, but was too busy to comment about it. Glad you clarified it.
The stuff about them ripping off Dennis is new to me, although I think I remember him mentioning something about it in passing.
If they've been doing this to Alaska report on purpose - it strikes me that there may be a bit of intent in the way they are using Zaki's stuff - we should try to find out if they're ripping off other people too, and confront the people responsible.
The people I've met from the ADN were all helpful and cooperative. If I were going to jump to a conclusion, it would be that the pressures and uncertainties of working for a morphing organization is causing these kinds of things to happen. But I'm too lazy to jump, so I'll just sit and wait to see what unfolds.
ReplyDeleteIt's a serious matter. There is a long history of old media trying to disadvantage the new. They are trying to trivialize and belittle bloggers. Why would they refer the Baranof person to a gossip columnist instead of to the reporter who did the story? The Daily News trivialized Geoff Kennedy's firing by APRN, and it trivialized APRN's suspension of me several times. I remember years ago when my boss in radio instructed me to never use the term "press" conference, but instead say "news" conference. Even today there are people who refuse to talk into a microphone yet talk to print reporters who then quote them. It's a constant battle, and I do mean battle.
ReplyDeleteThanks Steve (Heimel), I really appreciate having an experienced journalist weigh in on this. I'm so new to all this I don't have enough historic understanding to be certain about what the signs mean.
ReplyDeletePart of me was wondering why I was bothering with seemingly minor stuff, but another part was saying newspapers and freedom of speech are critical to democracy, and this 'little stuff' did seem to be an indicator of bigger stuff.
The point about sending the info back to the original reporter - duh, how did I miss that? You'd think that would be standard operating procedure for anyone answering the phones at a newspaper.
I used the ADN article about your firing on a mid-term exam when it came out. It included the audio of what you said on air - the first times I remember that as part of a newspaper story - and that was part of the exam too.