AOL Patch Debuts New Rochelle Operation by Plagiarizing From Talk of the Sound

[Robert Cox]

I am a little ticked off.

It was not even been a week since AOL Patch launched in New Rochelle, NY where I have been running a hyper local site for the past 2+ years and they are already pilfering my stories and lifting content from my site without attribution.

AOL Patch Debuts New Rochelle Operation by Plagiarizing From Talk of the Sound

http://www.newrochelletalk.com/content/aol-patch-debuts-new-rochelle-operation-plagiarizing-talk-sound

Has anyone else out there encountered this sort of behavior from Patch?  It is more than a little annoying that I have three people at a fire at a church for about 4 hours (including me) taking photos, shooting video interviewing the fire commander on scene and then editing and cutting the video and all that only see Patch comes in a day later and runs a story based on information from my article and an email interview with the Fire Commissioner who was only briefly on scene.

This bit about lifting images from my site is beyond the pale as far as I am concerned.

Any folks out there with similar experiences?

Robert Cox

Managing Editor

New Rochelle's Talk of the Sound

http://www.newrochelletalk.com

Phone: 914-500-8386

Email: robe...@newrochelletalk.com

Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/talkofthesound

[Noah R. Bombard]

I think experiences with Patch sites are going to depend largely on the individual editors of those sites. I can empathize with your frustration, although I'm not sure the public would get too jazzed up about a journalist copying a collage of mug shots. It was lazy on her part. And it doesn't bode well for her success or ability to compete with your site for coverage. If I were in your shoes, I'd probably have just kept watching with an eye of concern as to whether she'd journey further down a slippery slope of grabbing unattributed content from your site. Sometimes a simple courteous note is enough to stop that kind of behavior in its tracks. It depends on whether you are dealing with someone with nefarious intentions or someone who is just ... well ... a little dim-witted. 

Although Patch has hired a lot of very good journalists, they have also hired people -- as you point out -- with political connections or folks who had left journalism for PR or other fields. 

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Noah R. Bombard
"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."
-Abraham Lincoln

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[Porter Bayne]

Not good.  Did you contact her and/or Patch about it?  Curious what response, if any, you might get.

On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 9:37 PM, Robert Cox <rc...@mediabloggers.org> wrote:

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[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

The P-sites are not up and running yet in Puget Sound but are advertising for editors.

However, some in our metro area reported similar experiences more than a year ago when a different corporate chain of cookie-cutter "neighborhood news" sites launched. (See a link toward the end of the following story as well as one toward the end of the comment thread.)

http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2009/09/09/copy-this-komo

Do let them know you won't stand for it. Competition is unavoidable, but it should be honest.

TR in WS

[Bill Densmore]

I queried an acquaintance at Patch-AOL about the New Rochelle post. I
received this reply from Ari Soglin, a California regional editor for
Patch.com (and a former MSM daily editor and one-time operator of his own
local online news community:

FROM: Ari Soglin
September 26, 2010 at 10:27pm
Re: Ari, can someone from Patch comment on this post to our JTM-list?

Bill,

Thanks for the heads-up.

Patch Editor-in-chief Brian Farnham asked me to let you know he'll be
getting in touch with you about this post. He also asked me to pass along
his contact info:

Brian Farnham
Editor-in-Chief
917-534-5167
br...@patch.com

[Barry Parr]

I've already had very different experiences with Patch editors in my town and the town next door.  My local Patcher editor reached out to me, the one next door didn't see the point of calling the equivalent blogger next door.

I do strongly recommend contacting your local editor. They may have gotten off to a bad start, but it's still possible to be friendly competitors.

bp

--
Barry Parr

http://coastsider.com
http://mediasavvy.com
http://twitter.com/barryparr

650.523.4929
-----------------------------------------

[Robert Cox]

Thank you all for the replies, suggestions and especially the outreach to others at Patch.  In the weeks prior to launch I did meet with them and wrote about them and even advertised they were looking to hire writers on my site.  I want MORE coverage of my city and if they can provide it then I view them as helping me achieve my goal.  Had the ASKED permission to use my image (with attribution) I would have not hesitated to say yes, as I always do with other local media.

Over the weekend I sent an email to the local editor, the regional editor as well as Patch Editor-in-chief Brian Farnham and Patch President Warren Webster.  I have heard nothing back so far from anyone and the image remains on the site.

Please understand this is about more than just their use of my image.  New Rochelle is a unique, schizophrenic City with an affluent, predominantly white North End with higher property values than Scarsdale and a South End that is majority minority are with an urban downtown area and a large number of apartment dwellers more akin to the Bronx (although THE most expensive homes are also in the South, overlooking Long Island Sound).  There is a tremendous preoccupation among North End residents with presenting New Rochelle as the fictional home of Rob and Laura Petrie of the Dick Van Dyke Show (the show's creator Carl Reiner lived in New Rochelle 50 years ago and based the show there). For them it is -- quiet leafy suburbs, parks, high quality schools, low crime.  For the East End, West End and South End things are a bit different -- noisy urban, failing schools, much higher and more violent crime, etc.

The City government and Board of Ed are run by people from the North End.  They absolutely hate me and my site.  Collectively they have harassed me in a number of ways ranging from sending police to my house with phony complaints, hiring private investigators, threatening my web hosting provider, illegally discussing me in executive session, ignoring Freedom of Information requests, and generally defaming me to anyone who stands still long enough to listen.  For the past two years they have refused to put me on the email list for press releases and other petty stuff like that.  Of course, that has backfired and my site is now, I am told, the largest hyper-local site in Westchester County with about 25,000 readers a month.

We are often the only media outlet in the area where you can read about violent crimes or municipal corruption or what they call "negative" stories.  Their goal is to plant "positive" stories in the local media who kowtow to them for various reasons -- the area newspapers are paid for official notices and ads, the only local TV is a cable company that is licensed to operate by the City.  It has become clear that AOL is permitting the New Rochelle Patch to serve as an extension of their control of the flow of information in the City where the same clique is now running the site as yet another propaganda platform.

As I wrote in my article, if that is what AOL wants then fine but keep me out of it by not re-writing my stories or lifting my image content.

Bob Cox

[BillD]

Katie Ryan O'Connor, Hudson Valley regional editor for Patch.com has
responded to the post by Robert Cox alleging plagiarizing of his local
online news community blog. Ms. O'Connor emailed her reply to me at
the Media Giraffe Project since she is not on the JTM Google Groups
list. I am appending it below unedited.

-- bill densmore

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kathleen O'Connor <kath...@patch.com>
Date: Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 11:25 AM
Subject: Patch response
To: dens...@journ.umass.edu

Dear Bill,

I've taken the time to investigate the allegations by Robert Cox.
Thank you for seeking a response from Patch.

Simply put, our New Rochelle Patch Local Editor Allison Esposito did
not plagiarize anything from Mr. Cox's blog in any form.

The objects in question — police generated mug shots — are publicly
available and any similarity to Mr. Cox's presentation of those public
images is purely coincidental. Linking mug shots together in Photoshop
(in this case, apparently doing nothing more than placing three
similar sized objects in a row) is standard operating procedure for
news organizations everywhere.

His other criticisms of Patch are puzzling at best. I'll try to
address them point by point:

Mr. Cox alleges Ms. Esposito is a "democratic political operative."
Here's the truth: Like so many journalists faced with finding work in
an industry that is shedding jobs at a rapid pace (as many as 25
percent of all full-time newspaper positions have disappeared since
2001, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors), Ms.
Esposito took jobs in other fields that would utilize her writing and
editing skills, most recently working as a communications director for
Democratic Assemblywoman Amy Paulin. She held that position for only
about 12 months. During an extensive interview process, Ms. Esposito
made it clear her first and foremost passion was journalism and has
been working to find her way back into a full-time reporting and
editing position ever since. Her work for Paulin is clearly stated in
her biography for all readers to see — and more importantly, decide
for themselves. Transparency is a key part of Patch's mission, which
is why our editors go above and beyond most disclosures by journalists
by revealing key beliefs publicly, such as political leanings and
religious views.

As for Mr. Cox's assertion we have no interest in challenging the city
administration, it's worth noting this came after we had been live for
less than three full days (one a Saturday) and appears based on two,
maybe three routine features and two third-party reader comments.
Patch is committed to the highest standards of public service
journalism. We just exposed lead contamination at the Clarkstown
police firing range when the town would have much preferred it stay
quiet. Our Larchmont-Mamaroneck editor earlier this year uncovered an
air gun incident in Rye Neck schools that appeared to have been
significantly underplayed to parents and we recently revealed a
parking funds scandal in Port Chester. Our extensive coverage of the
death of two local firefighters in Tarrytown continues and now
investigations have shown the town workers did not follow protocol for
sewer problems. Mr. Cox may have also forgotten I edited the New
Rochelle report for The Journal News when city residents bitterly
fought a plan to establish an outpost of the Swedish furniture giant
IKEA — and won. Our aggressive reporting earned my team an Associated
Press award. We proudly invite anyone to fairly judge our work —
readers do everyday.

Mr. Cox alleges in his initial posting on the Journalism that Matters
Google group here that a story we wrote on a church fire was "based on
information" from his site. Also completely false. (And I was curious
why Mr. Cox does not include this secondary allegation on his own
blog.) In reading both stories, I'm just not sure how to respond.
There is simply no similarity between our story and his very brief
blog posting. Unless he means that when his brief says the church was
"undergoing a remodeling" (no attribution) and our story says, "The
church appeared as if it is currently in the process of being
renovated, according to Fire Commissioner Raymond 'Doc' Kiernan," that
it constitutes some sort of borrowing. Unless he posted something
else, the item that ran under the headline "Lightening (sic) Strikes
Cross on New Rochelle Steeple..." bears no resemblance to what we ran.
Here is his story. Here is ours.

For additional perspective, Mr. Cox previously sought to be a paid
columnist for New Rochelle Patch. I declined his offer.

I'd be happy to discuss this further with anyone interested. I can be
reached via phone at 914-299-9379 and email at kath...@patch.com.

Best regards,
Katie
--
Katie Ryan O'Connor
Hudson Valley Regional Editor
914-299-9379
Patch.com
Twitter.com/westchestrpatch

> Phone:914-500-8386begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              914-500-8386      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
>  Email: robert...@newrochelletalk.com
> Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/talkofthesound

[Barry Parr]

I'm not terribly sympathetic to Robert's claim that reusing mugshots is plagiarism, but I find the following to be really tacky:

>For additional perspective, Mr. Cox previously sought to be a paid
>columnist for New Rochelle Patch. I declined his offer

[Noah R. Bombard]

My thoughts exactly, Barry.

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[Bob Gough]

I'll third that, especially as my former employers play that card against me all of the time.

 

Bob

[Tish Grier]

thanks for forwarding the entire text of Ms. O'Connor's email to you...

While her line about declining Bob's offer to write for Patch sounds like an
indictment of sour grapes, IMO she's just giving all the details. If she were
to hold that back, would we think differently? Does this make us say "oh,
well, that explains it" and shut the door on the rest of what she's said in the
email.

The way I would have handled the matter is this: I would have posted a comment
at the bottom of the Patch post about the pic, and linked back to my post.
Then sit back and wait to see what would happen to the comment. Sometimes the
best thing to do is to address something openly and publicly rather than getting
all bunged up about it. There can, indeed, be credible explanations, even from
groups that we might despise.

Tish

----- Original Message ----
From: BillD <wpden...@gmail.com>
To: Journalism That Matters <jtm...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, September 28, 2010 11:51:43 AM
Subject: Re: {JTM} AOL Patch Debuts New Rochelle Operation by Plagiarizing From
Talk of the Sound

-- bill densmore

Dear Bill,

>g

> Email: robert...@newrochelletalk.com
> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/talkofthesound

--