MMA Journalism Roundtable: Sourcing, Citing and Plagiarizing
By Yael Grauer on Jul 27, 2009
As I mentioned yesterday, I contacted some of my favorite MMA writers to discuss a series of questions relating to integrity in MMA media. Our guest opinions come courtesy of Jim Murphy of the Savage Science, Zak Woods of SB Nation and Watch Kalib Run and MMA Opinion’s very own Joshua Stein. Today we’ll be discussing the following question… please leave your own thoughts in the comments section!
One of the sore spots MMA writers have is when writers don’t cite their information. While everyone would agree that stealing articles (cutting and pasting with changed names) is wrong, what about repeating information read elsewhere without citing the source? Or when people’s entire article is a quote taken from somewhere else? Where do you draw the line between laziness and plagiarism?
(Read the answers after the jump!)
Josh Stein:
It’s important to acknowledge that much of the information in the world of MMA is public domain. This is true for all sports. Once information is out there, it becomes common knowledge fairly quickly, and that’s the nature of the news cycle. I’d like to say that we should all be responsible ethically and all go back and link to the original people who break the news, but that’s not a realistic expectation. Of course, there are situations where people don’t cite quotes from interviews, and in those situations, they really should. However, in the modern world of internet media, it’s hard to say that there should be a gold standard of source citation. As much as the journalism professionals might like the idea, it’s not realistic.
As far as reposting goes, that is plagarism and should be seriously frowned upon. But so much of the information is public domain, citations for things like “who’s fighting who” rumors and confirmations, as well as rivalries, are not really subject to intellectual property standards, as much as we might like to hold people accountable for citations.
Part of what makes writing on the internet so much fun is that the ability to link to other articles and pieces of information. It allows the writer to clearly lay out their thinking process and how they assimilated the available information to make an argument. It is also fun for the readers who can explore both the argument and the pieces of information the author used to create the position. In this manner it is absolutely vital to cite, with links and quotes, one’s piece.
The same is true when it comes to properly citing new reports with either links or attribute it directly. It has simply become internet edict to do so. Many are not just linking the original report but also linking where they themselves first saw it. Such honesty is refreshing.
When it comes to quoting this is a double edge sword. One doesn’t want to turn one’s whole piece into a quote, but sometimes it may be necessary to take a larger portion of text to accurately represent the previous author’s argument. I know that when I have disagreed with a certain opinion I am loathed to reduce their argument down to two sentences or a paragraph. In these instances I often place a disclaimer encouraging readers to read the opposing view fully before reading my counter argument.
Jim Murphy: That’s a tough call. As far as garden variety news items, you pretty much have to view them as a ‘commodity’. If I’m up in the middle of the night and our Japanese correspondent emails to tell me that FEG is bringing Bruce Lee back from the dead for a DREAM card we may be the first to report that. But more than likely DREAM has already confirmed it in the media or posted it on their website or whatever. If I wake up the next day and see other sites reporting the Bruce Lee story without attribution, I’m not going to cry foul.
Having said that, we try to give credit to sources more often than not. If we read on the excellent Japanese MMA blog ‘Nightmare of Battle’ about a forthcoming DREAM main event, there’s no reason not to hook them up with the credit and a link. It’s just good karma. And if you know anything about Internet promotion and SEO, reciprocal linking benefits everyone.
Obviously that doesn’t extend to stealing concepts and certainly cut and pasting articles. If one of our writers does a deep article drawing parallels between Kurosawa film and the DREAM ‘Super Hulk tournament’ and another site just so happens to bring up the same point the next day, that’s over the line. There’s probably not a completely objective criteria—its just one of those things that ‘you know it when you see it’.
As far as quotes taken from somewhere else, again it’s hard to say what categorically is or isn’t over the line. If a promotion sends me a press release with quotes from their fighters, and I work that into an article that sure seems to be legit. If a site does an ‘exclusive’ one on one interview with someone, and another site lifts it and tries to pass it off as their own that’s not.
What are your thoughts? Post in the comments!
Filed Under: MMA
This is interesting stuff. I visit a lot of MMA sites and I always wondered what rules people try to follow when sharing information. So it’s good to hear all of your opinions on it.
Good stuff guys
When in doubt, link it out. And link to the original source, not the site who pulled one quote out of an entire interview. I had Perez Hilton do that to an Olympics story of mine. It’s lazy and unfair to the original reporter who did the work. But thanks for putting this out there, guys. It seems like a little thing, but it means a lot.
I do think it’s lazy journalism when an article has a short intro and the rest of it is a LONG quote, even when it is linked… don’t you think?
Yeah, but we don’t kill people for sloth. That’s not how we roll.
The worst is when the 6 or 7 best sites/blogs are all running the same story siting different leads. It drives m crazy. That’s why I don’t post a lot of breaking news. I would rather be last with the right info than first and be wrong…I.e. Kimmo
And oh yea….the infamous “sources close to” is BS
No killing people for sloth? That’s no fun.
I use “sources close to” when I’m 99% sure information is accurate but don’t necessarily want to reveal how I found out… either because I was asked not to reveal who I found out from, or because I think it’d be irrelevant if I wrote “this guy that I know who works with his manager told me, and I verified it by text messaging his training partner who I went to grade school with” type of thing in an article.
This is probably where every MMA Blogger should start reading when they begin thinking of running a website. Great opinions, great minds and a great learning tool.
I think every writer and blogger has their own style when it comes to How they present their info to their audience, but you are responsible to make sure they know where it came from. LINK HIDING in paragraphs is something I thought was something that was OK when I first began Blogging, but David from 5OZ’s corrected me and I quickly found out why I was being called a thief from fans. Which was not my intention.
I quickly found out that the second line is always the Source line and it’s something I made sure my fans even know when posting a “Fan Jab” which let’s them post their own contributions to my Site.
I have made it a rule NEVER TO give a link to those who hide sources now. I try to give everyone a link back if I can, it doesn’t hurt my site it helps.
I looked the other day at my stats and less then 1% of my visitors actually click the links I post, but they do visit other Blogs and websites as well who we recomend. I think you should take joy in showing your fans that you use all of these great MMA websites to gather your info. It shows that you know this sport and do not leave any details out Of your Blog.
I love what I do and I love showing my fans that we can post something Funny, something opinionated and professional and something News worthy all on one website.
I think as a Blogger you should take pride in being able to post all different types of information. As we all know your not going to find the same type of writing on Sherdog and MMAWeekly as you will find on Cagepotato and Fightlinker, but if your just blatantly stealing from these great sites and presenting it as your own you do a injustice to yourself. No one will backlink you, no one will
Trade links or help you out.
You should expose your fans to Variety and proper backlinking and credit shows them you never go to the same 3 or 4 sites to find new information.
Yael, yes, it is lazy. Here is why. If it’s my interview, I either spent the time on the phone or went to the fighter’s gym, spent the time in the interview, spent the time to transcribe it, and spent the time editing pictures to go with it. I’m asking too much for you to click through to the original post and spend five minutes reading it so that I get credit?
Yael,
I wasn’t referring to that type of sources close to, I was talking about the ones…for example…
Tito is fighting Chuck at UFC 103, sources close to the situation have confirmed that the fight will take place at heavyweight, with the winner getting an immediate heavyweight title shot…
How many times have you read stuff like that? Very different than what you do. I should have clarified.
Outstanding discussion and ideas boys!
I personally have a serious dislike for articles that are 90% quotes from another site. If I wanted to know what Site A thought or was saying about the topic, I would go there, not come to Site B.
That being said, I think linking to the original is always a must in those situations and even in the cases where another article serves as inspiration for what you have written. It’s just good business to me.
Looking forward to the rest of this series.
This is a great topic with some great insight. I have been running an MMA site for about a year now and without a journalistic background, have found it to be a steep learning curve on the dos and don’ts of writing, sourcing and linking to stories on the internet. I haven’t found a list of guidelines or rules to online journalism to follow, so much of what I know has been learned one day at a time from blogging friends and from seeing what others are doing. I appreciate this MMA Journalism roundtable discussion and have already learned quite a bit from it. I look forward to seeing more. Thanks.
I found this site through Fight opinion and I love the idea for this roundtable discussion. Everyone is coming up with really solid takes.
Whether you’re an upstart blog or a long established MMA website you should always cite your source if the news you are reporting is original content coming from another site.
Josh Gross, Kevin Iole, mma junkie, etc. all break a lot of industry stories if they or anyone else reports it first cite them. If, a smaller site or blog takes the time and does an interview with a fighter and catches an interesting quote cite them.
Sounds simple enough but too many MMA sites/blogs out there don’t do it.
Bloody Elbow, junkie, payout are some of the sites that I find always cite their sources.
Wow! Lots of great comments. I do think it’s okay sometimes to write an article that doesn’t do much more but cite an article on another website. I did this quite a bit in my recent column where I talked about Palace Fighting Championship no longer operating at Tachi Palace. The reason was that nobody else that I know of wrote about it except MMA Weekly (and some site in Hawaii that simply reprinted the MMA Weekly article). I did add some context to explain why this is important in women’s MMA, but for the most part anybody who wanted to have the information could simply go to MMA Weekly.
The reason I think this is okay is that not everyone DOES go to MMA Weekly. Some people might JUST read MMA Opinion, or a small number of blogs that doesn’t include MMA Weekly. I’d like to think that we can do a good enough job covering all pertinent information at this one site that a reader who doesn’t go to 12 sites could get all they need to know here… Or if they go to 12 sites that don’t include all of the ones we are writing about.
The drawback is that now people who do go to 12 sites get the same story, quoted and regurgitated over and over and over again… But it’s not hard to avoid clicking on certain headlines if you have everything you need, and to look for added insight (or want to read everyone’s take) on the fighters or issues you’re really interested in.
Oh, and Maggie, I definitely agree! I had the hardest time dealing with that when I was writing about Jessica Bednark. My boyfriend’s from St. Cloud and we’ve got friends that used to train with Jessica, and I spent several hours making phone calls and tracking down people and getting information on what was going on before writing an article. Then I found the article cut and pasted all over the web, mostly without citation. So then I had to spend MORE time telling people if they were going to reprint my article without permission they should at least put my name on it. It made me seem like the bad guy, and I agree that ESPECIALLY in that situation it was important to get the news out, but at least write it in your own words people! When I asked people to either rewrite it or stick my name and the link on it, they simply took down the entire article.
I also found many articles just cutting and pasting quotes from my interview, even with citation, which was upsetting. But mostly I was concerned that it would keep happening with my work, which luckily it didn’t.
I also have an old Josh Barnett interview (originally on 8Count News, now it’s here
http://mixedmartialartsandmore.blogspot.com/2009/02/day-of-reckoning-interview-with-josh.html
that people quoted parts of out of context, or they’d link to other sites that quoted from the interview (with and without citation). This bugged me because I wanted anybody interested to at least have the option of reading the entire interview, and I wanted them to have access to the original site it was on.
It’s all water under the bridge now, but really bothered me at the time.