Glenn Greenwald has an interesting post about the Maureen Dowd plagiarism drama in, The myth of the parasitical bloggers:

I raise this only to illustrate how one-sided and even misleading is the complaint that bloggers are "parasites" on the work of "real journalists." Often, the parasitical feeding happens in the opposite direction, though while bloggers routinely credit (and link to) the source of the material on which they're commenting, there is an unwritten code among many establishment journalists that while they credit each other's work, they're free to claim as their own whatever they find online without any need for credit or attribution (see here for a typical example of how many of these news organizations operate in this regard).

It's difficult to quantify, but a large percentage of political reporters, editors, television news producers, and on-air pundits read political blogs or other online venues now. Many do so precisely because blogs are a prime source for their story ideas. Contrary to the myth perpetrated by establishment media outlets, there is substantial original reporting, original analysis and the like that takes place on blogs. That's precisely why so many journalists, editors and segment producers read them.

I had exactly the same experience of finding a journalist from a "reputable news outlet" take once again one of my posts and write out a whole article and never give me attribution. This has happened countless times during my almost 8 years of blogging, but this last one really annoyed the hell out of me. Take a look at my post, It's the end of the world as we know it, and compare it to, Civil War Raging in Right-Wing Blogosphere, an article that appeared on the Washington Independent exactly 7 days after. You can't tell me the author didn't happen to read my post when a lot of the sources he cites are almost all the ones I quote on my post.

As Glenn says, this is not illegal. I have to say though that is exasperating as hell to find yet again another idiot who won't link back to my work for whatever reason. Even if it is somewhat soothing to find out that even guys like Glenn Greenwald and Josh Marshall have assholes doing the same to them. Because the point of this drama is not so much that we bloggers are a source of original reporting. That's a given. What is little discussed is the reason why we have journalists stealing our content: It's not for what we write that they steal our content. They steal our ideas and even our content exactly because our social capital is so much higher than the social capital of journalists.

In other words, we are truly trusted sources. Journalists? Not so much.
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Reports of the Clintons' dirty politics tactics are mounting every day and it now involves not only officials within the White House but the Prime Minister of Canada as well.

Read and weep from The Globe and Mail :

Reporters were locked up there all day, examining the federal budget until they were allowed to leave once it was tabled in the House of Commons at 4 p.m.

Since the budget contained little in the way of headline-grabbing surprises, some were left with enough free time to gather around a large-screen TV to watch the latest hockey news on NHL trade deadline day.

Mr. Brodie wandered over to speak to Finance Department officials and chatted amiably with journalists — who appreciated this rare moment of direct access to the top official in Mr. Harper's notoriously tight-lipped government.

The former university professor found himself in a room with CTV employees where he was quickly surrounded by a gaggle of reporters while other journalists were within earshot of other colleagues.

At the end of an extended conversation, Mr. Brodie was asked about remarks aimed by the Democratic candidates at Ohio's anti-NAFTA voters that carried serious economic implications for Canada.

Since 75 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S., Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's musings about reopening the North American free-trade pact had caused some concern.

Mr. Brodie downplayed those concerns.

"Quite a few people heard it," said one source in the room.

"He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."

Government officials did not deny the conversation took place.

They said that Mr. Brodie sought to allay concerns about the impact of Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's assertion that they would re-negotiate NAFTA if elected. But they did say that Mr. Brodie had no recollection of discussing any specific candidate — either Ms. Clinton or Mr. Obama.

CTV News President Robert Hurst said he would not discuss his journalists' sources.

But others said the content of Mr. Brodie's remarks was passed on to CTV's Washington bureau and their White House correspondent set out the next day to pursue the story on Ms. Clinton's apparent hypocrisy on the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Although CTV correspondent Tom Clark mentioned Ms. Clinton in passing, the focus of his story was on assurances from the Obama camp.

To say that Canadian government has been embarrassed is to say the least. Whomever leaked this conversation to CTV did it knowing they could use it to hurt Senator Obama. The diplomatic repercussions of this are not only unprecedented. The Canadian government believes it's illegal.
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I am thisclose on getting all ghetto on your ass. I want you to stop and I want you to stop now.

I was born in East Harlem and raised in Puerto Rico. Before being a black woman, I have the qualitative Puerto Rican come before it. I don't pick or choose sides when it comes to my ethnicity or my race most of the time --unless you are Alberto Gonzales or Condoleeza Rice.

Right now, I am thisclose to choosing.

Which is why, as much as I have reasons to smack Markos upside the head for the kind of very public fall out he and I have had, I will get all ghetto on anybody's ass who tries to use my name to discredit him.

Do you get that?

I don't give a shit whether you are black or white. What I give a shit about is your true commitment to progressive political action.

What are you going to do to move forward a progressive agenda that will help everybody in this country equally?

Puertorriqueña I am siempre. I am black because I come from slavery; but my mother, who's white skin and green eyes I have taken in with love since the day I was born, comes from the Spaniard equivalent of white niggers. My family were both slaves and indentured servants and I was raised to never forget that.

The father of my children is as white as he can be through his Irish and Polish ascendancies. I have one child who is dark skinned and another one who is white. They both could pass as non-latinos and non-black if we were those kind of people.

Last, but not least, I happen to have blogs where the majority of the posters are white. It's not what I intended at all, but that's what it is. At least here at culturekitchen I have women on the front page. At the The Daily Gotham? It's all white men.

Are you going to call me a racist if the majority of people who have turned down my invitations to post on these sites are black americans and latinos?

Let this be a warning to not just to you, the person who has prompted me to write this post, but to all who use the services of this site.

Do not take my name or the name of any of my blogs in vain for any of your petty vendettas.
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