Romenesko+ Misc.
On Friday, a Romenesko+ reader pointed out that The National has been running other news outlets’ stories and giving top credit to “The National Staff.” The reader notes that “The National’s Business staff added nothing at all to those pieces … they are totally copied and pasted from those [Reuters and Bloomberg News] wires.” I asked The National’s business editor to comment, and he sent this over the weekend:
Your note, apparently sent Friday when I was off, came to me from The National’s main web site. Unfortunately I was not able to respond before you posted your blog.
At The National we take our standards of journalism very seriously, and indeed, we pride ourselves on the work of more than 200 reporters and editors who produce one of the finest English-language papers in the Middle East.
Like other top newspapers we subscribe to news agencies and as policy, attribute copy to agency reporters as well as agencies. Your blog posting points to a case in which an obvious mistake was made with attribution to the agencies. This has been corrected and we have taken steps to ensure that does not happen again.
Best regards,
Tom Ashby
Business Editor
The National
Abu Dhabi
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