Jim Romenesko’s messy departure from Poynter sparked a flood of reactions from mainstream media and bloggers. A handful of writers agreed with Poynter Online Director Julie Moos that Romenesko had used “questionable attribution” in some of his posts. But many defended Romenesko’s practices, and several criticized Moos’ handling of the situation. The Columbia Journalism Review – which initially raised the attribution question in an email to Moos for an upcoming story – called Romensko’s attribution practices “sloppy.” CJR’s Justin Peters wrote:

It is odd to criticize a journalism ethics institute for caring too much about journalism ethics, and it is disingenuous to say that there was no error here out of a historical respect and affinity for Jim Romenesko (and the traffic he commands) and an uncertainty about whether aggregators should be subject to the same rules as other journalists.

Media critic Eric Deggans at the Poynter-owned St. Petersburg Times wrote, “Somebody has to start drawing lines here. And I don't blame Poynter for saying they want to be as specific as possible about what their writers write and what their writers quote.” But those views were in the minority. NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen tweeted that the attribution concerns are a “non-issue”; David Carr at The New York Times said Moos’ post explaining the situation “seemed like an answer in search of a problem.” Writing in the Awl, Choire Sicha said, “Romenesko's entire practice was about giving credit, in ways that virtually no other blog has been.” Sicha said he knows no writers who’ve complained about Romenesko misappropriating their work. (more...)