I’m a big fan of the Mashable blog by Pete Cashmore. They cover technology and the Web like no other blog, and they have some great writers — like Adam Ostrow, Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins, Kristen Nicole and others — but something has always kind of bothered me about the site, and I’m glad that Louis Gray finally wrote about it: Mashable often isn’t that great at giving credit to the blogs and writers who found an item first.
In his post, Louis is quite rightly upset about a couple of scoops he got, involving the site Readburner and another similar site called Shared Reader. In the first case, Mashable wrote about the site and gave him no credit whatsoever — not even a link. In the second case, Louis says that Mashable wrote an item and put a small “via” link at the bottom, something they often do. While this is a link, Louis is right that it’s not very prominent and is easily missed. But at least it’s a link.
The other example he uses is pretty outrageous, however: Louis says a quote he got from Robert Scoble was lifted from his post and used in a Mashable post without any link or attribution whatsoever. I think everyone would agree that taking quotes is pretty offside. Pete has responded in the comments to Louis’s post, and says he is reviewing the site’s linking policies, but he doesn’t say anything about the quote (although the post has been updated with attribution).
Attribution is something that has been — and is still — a long-running debate in traditional media as well. Television stations “rip and read” newspaper stories, but newspapers themselves routinely take articles from wire services like Reuters or Associated Press and use virtually the entire thing, but put their own writer’s byline on it. Sometimes they put a small “with files from” at the end of the story.
The fact that you can link on the Internet is one of the most powerful forces there is. A link from Mashable can help people find new blogs such as Louis’s, and they shouldn’t be stingy with their attribution — and they definitely shouldn’t be lifting quotes holus-bolus. I hope Pete and his team can set a good example for others.
Discussion
Comments for “I’m glad Louis Gray called out Mashable”
Add New Comment
Viewing 25 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
you called them on it.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
... or, mainstream journalists might even be ripping them right out of bloggers posts ... as was I wrote about recently over here: <shameless plug> http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2008/01/19/are... </shameless plug> with respect to a study done on US journalists recently.
I think, in general, this is a great conversation to have -- a who's watching the watcher's kind of vibe -- and attribution is one of those bloggable topics that really never gets old (mostly because issues around it keep on happening)
Cheers
t @ d ji
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
No they should not, but monetization is trumping journalism all over the place and I think the blog community should think about this a lot more than we do.
I don't know about Mashable's practices, but often it is marginally paid and marginally talented writers who feed the big blogs that originally had really thoughtful voices.
Also, natural linking has effectively become a "web currency" and many "A list" sites are very reluctant to link to sites outside of their frames of reference - I believe they see it as too big of a favor where even 5 years back it would have been done without a second thought.
I see this as a growing problem with many large, heavily monetized tech blogs. They are (slowly) trading profit concerns for journalism and web concerns. An inevitable thing, but a bad one.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
it.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Yeah, I was speaking about this same issue with some peeps at the Crunchies (including the Techcrunch guys). The editors and I had already mailed back and forth on Friday night regarding how to include more visible attribution in the editorial guidelines, so those changes were already underway.
Basic issue is this: as team grows (4 to 5 core editors, more than a dozen writers and other staff), you need more and more written rules to cover the stuff that seems obvious to an individual blogger. See my comments on Louis' post for some other points from me.
I gotta go out for the day, but I'll mail you my cell number should you wish to chat.
--Pete
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
that you guys want to get on the right side of this thing. I appreciate
that it gets hard when you get bigger, and some things that may be
understood when it's just you and a couple of other bloggers can get lost
between the cracks. But I do think it's an important issue, and I'm glad
you're addressing it.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
With all due respect, proper attribution should be something embraced by blogs written by a single person and multi-headed entities such as Mashable, GigaOm and TechCrunch.
As blogs become increasingly seen as news sources, they will face more scrutiny and, as a well, will likely have to embrace journalistic "standards".
Mark
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
seem all that difficult.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
her photo in that Richter Scales video would have been nice -- I just said
it wasn't legally required, which I still believe it wasn't.
In any case, that was about a photo appearing as part of a larger work for
less than a second, which is something completely different. This is about
taking credit for an entire post. If Richter Scales had tried to take
credit for Lane's photo, then you would be on the right track. As it is, it
seems like you're just being difficult.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
there's much comparison between Lane and Mashable lifting a quote or not
giving another blog credit when they run something that's virtually
identical to what another blogger posted -- that would be like posting a
photo from Lane and pretending it was yours, which is clearly wrong.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
What is your paper's policy on sources? I think some of the confusion stems over what should be cited. If you were the editor of your paper, what would be your rule?
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
give them credit at the end. If you take a quote then you should say "told
Reuters" or "told Associated Press."
But in a story in a newspaper you can't link to a primary source -- on a
blog you can, and should.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
It is, in my opinion, unfair to call out Mashable for not linking/not attributing the stories to the source. Mashable always links. There are dozens of sites out there, big sites, that don't link (like Ars Technica) and sites that are basically linkblogs, with most of their material being taken off other blogs with a short comment (Lifehacker). The fact that someone in some text (and Mashable produces dozens of pieces daily) didn't attribute a quote (although he did link) doesn't prove much else except the fact that Mashable is a blog. Yup, that's it: it's no NYT (yet (: ), and people writing there are bloggers, and that's why there are no strict rules about things like that.
Personally, I am a professional journalist and I do not consider myself a blogger. I write for several publications in several languages, and if someone finds such an unattributed quote in my text (anywhere), it's an error on my part. But calling out Mashable for being some sort of evil blog that doesn't link or attribute stories is not fair, because, as I've said, Mashable takes great care to link to the source.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
writers. I think you do great stuff for Mashable. And don't get me wrong,
I think Mashable has lots of great material -- and I know that everyone
makes mistakes. I'm not trying to beat up on you guys. I just thought
Louis's post was a good opportunity to get some discussion going about some
of these issues.
For example, should a small "via" link at the bottom be enough when the
content of the post is fundamentally the same as the original post? I don't
know. Should linking once to the originating blog be enough credit for
using a quote or some other chunk of information, or should there be more
obvious credit? I don't know. I think a lot of this still has to be
determined -- and it's only through talking and debating it that we're going
to arrive at the answer.