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Journalism-outsourcing firm Journatic is under so many reviews it'll soon need its own Metacritic page. The San Francisco Chronicle is now looking at the company's work, Emily Lambert reports in Crain's Chicago Business, joining its Hearst corporate sibling the Houston Chronicle in a critical look at Journatic. Journatic got bad notices at the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and GateHouse, which have suspended or ended their relationships with the company.

The San Fran review can't come soon enough, writes Rebecca Rosen Lum in FogCityJournal. Carl Hall of the Pacific Media Workers Guild told Lum “This level of deception would get our members fired.”

Any section edited by news staff should be held to the same standards as the rest of the paper, Hall said. Otherwise, lower standards in one part of the paper and its website degrade the entire operation. (more...)

Hearst-owned newspapers are "reviewing content" supplied by journalism-outsourcing company Journatic after Poynter's report Monday that the company published more than 350 false bylines on Houston Chronicle website stories.

The company issued the following statement through Chronicle Communications Director Nicki Britton:

Hearst Newspapers, including the flagship Houston Chronicle, is reviewing content it has received from Journatic. As part of this review, changes already have been made to their byline and attribution processes, and all archived content that resides on Chron.com that carried misattributed bylines is in the process of being corrected. We are closely monitoring our relationship with Journatic to be certain that its work product meets the highest journalistic and ethical standards.

Related: Journatic published hundreds of stories under fake bylines on Houston Chronicle websites (Poynter) || Earlier: Journatic memo to staff: ‘DO NOT LIE ABOUT YOUR NAME’ | The Sun-Times and GateHouse end their relationships with Journatic, and the Tribune suspends it after plagiarism revelations, newsroom takes over TribLocal (Poynter) | Journatic worker takes ‘This American Life’ inside outsourced journalism (Poynter).

In a memo sent Sunday afternoon, Chicago Tribune Editor and Senior Vice President Gerould Kern told staff that the paper would once again be directly responsible for its suburban TribLocal content. In addition, "all Journatic news content is gone from TribLocal sites," Kern clarified in an email forwarded to me. This change follows the Tribune's decision, announced Friday, to suspend work with Journatic, which had taken over TribLocal on behalf of the company about three months ago.

At the time, Kern told the Tribune:

"We've made an investment in this company because we believe that it is a more effective way of providing hyperlocal news, and we think we can do more of it in this way."

The move to suspend work with Journatic was precipitated by a plagiarized story revealed Friday and ongoing revelations about false bylines published in the Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Chronicle, featured on "This American Life" two weeks ago.

Kern's memo follows.

Colleagues:

The Chicago Tribune newsroom has assumed responsibility for all content appearing in TribLocal in print and online for the foreseeable future. All Journatic content has been eliminated. (more...)

In an apparent attempt to neutralize a high-level critic, Journatic is now claiming it was about to fire an editorial executive who resigned from the company Saturday.

The resignation of Mike Fourcher, who worked at Journatic for only 10 weeks, is the latest sign of increasing trouble at the company, which provides brief stories for Hearst-owned news organizations, Tribune properties, and until recently for the Chicago Sun-Times and GateHouse, which both said they ended their contracts with the company.

After discovering that a Journatic writer had plagiarized a story, Tribune announced Friday night that it would suspend work with the company, though it is an investor and laid off about 20 journalists in April when it shifted responsibility to Journatic for its TribLocal suburban websites.

It was Fourcher who dealt directly with the Tribune when it was discovered that writer Luke Campbell had taken material from a Patch site and a Chicago Sun-Times hyperlocal suburban site, Fourcher told me by phone. It was Fourcher, along with another editor, who discussed the incident with Campbell and subsequently fired him, Fourcher said. And it was Fourcher who briefed CEO Brian Timpone on the firing Friday afternoon, he said. (more...)

In a memo sent to Journatic staff Saturday morning, Amanda Smith-Teutsch, the outsourcing company’s community news manager, addressed the fallout from the Chicago Tribune's discovery that writer Luke Campbell had plagiarized a story. The Tribune, a Journatic investor, announced Friday night that it would suspend work with the company for its TribLocal content.

From: Amanda Smith-Teutsch Date: Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 10:09 AM Subject: This weekend's news - Please read

Good morning everyone. Many of you have contacted me individually, and I want you to hear the news from the source and not second hand.

I am sure by now you have all seen this news. If you haven't, please take a moment to read. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-07-13/business/ct-chicago-tribune-suspends-use-of-journatic-07132012_1_weekly-print-editions-town-websites-editorial-ethics-policy

In an isolated incident, a writer committed plagiarism. We examined all of that writer's work and found no other incidents that would lead us to suspect plagiarism; we are checking over other work as well.

This is what it means for us: (more...)

With founder Debbie Galant taking a new job at Montclair State University, where she'll join "an ambitious effort to nurture digital and hyperlocal journalism in New Jersey," Baristanet co-owner Liz George now has a busier summer ahead of her.

But George said she doesn't expect major changes in the hyperlocal site's coverage or approach.

"We have such a mix of voices, I don't think there's going to be a dramatic change," she said in a phone interview. "We have a sensibility that we've worked on for eight years, throughout the site."

In the past several months, George said she and Galant spent most of their time managing the business and handling editorial issues, with some writing interspersed. She said it wasn't a full-time job for either of them, though of course it will be harder with Galant gone and contributors away on summer vacations. (more...)

Miami Herald | Northwest Herald | Guardian | Street Fight
The controversy over Journatic's outsourcing of local news has benefited one type of content that you can't send overseas as easily as real-estate news: newspaper columns.

The Miami Herald's Fred Grimm promises readers that he's a real, single human being living in South Florida. Journatic's outsourcing, he writes, is uncomfortably similar to a satire he wrote in 2004:

A team of software engineers, call center operators, tax accountants and street urchins now assembles this column in Calcutta, cobbling together 20 inches of verbiage, checking the spelling, writing a headline and transmitting the product to Miami hours before deadline — a feat unobtainable under the old system. All this for a tenth of the cost of employing an aging American journalist. Without the mood swings.

Now, he reflects, "the joke seems a little less funny, and no longer so improbable."

In another column, Dan McCaleb, senior editor of suburban Chicago's Northwest Herald, makes the case for locally produced journalism:

“When you write about local people, you’re cognizant that this is someone’s son, someone’s neighbor or friend,” said [Kevin] Lyons, our news editor. “These are real people to you and often people who mean something to people you live around. News must be reported, but people aren’t to be exploited. People expect more from us. We have responsibilities to be good neighbors and community members, too. It’s a two-way discussion.” (more...)