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John Edwards Love Child Story Goes International
No Attribution in TimesOnline Edwards story
Is This a New Business Model for a Mainstream Media in Trouble?

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"We contacted an AP senior editor and ombudsman both and both admitted to having had the article passed on to them, and both stated that they viewed us as a blog and because we were a blog, they did not need to credit us."
--Larisa Alexandrovna, Huffington Post & at-Largely

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DBKP.com was alerted yesterday to both a good news-bad news situation by Doug Ross, of DougRoss@Journal.

The good news was the TimesOnline had used several of our quotes from our interview this week with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer, in a story it ran on John Edwards' run-in with the Enquirer's reporters at the Beverly Hilton while visiting his mistress and their love child.

The bad news was that the Times reporter, Sarah Baxter, in her story, Sleaze scuppers Democrat golden boy never credited DBKP as her source for the quotes, which were taken word-for-word from our story, "John Edwards Affair: Interview with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer".

Doug has an account at "Sunday Times runs Edwards-Mistress-Love Child story, rips off Blogosphere".

As Doug points out: "When this story first broke in December I wrote that the blogosphere renders the mainstream media less relevant by the day.

Through its questionable behavior, the Times has done nothing to counter my assertion."

At first, we tended to attribute the non-attribution to an oversight. After all, the story was widely mentioned this week, among other places at Slate, The Corner at National Review Online, Ace of Spades HQ and made the front page of FARK.

But upon closer inspection, doubts began to arise. We sent a letter yesterday to the Times Editor-in-Chief asking that proper credit be given. We also sent a copy to the Times News Desk.

Easy enough, right? Just add the proper credit and link to the corrected story on-line and publish a small correction later for the print edition.

Then we received some disturbing news.

DBKP's LBG sent in an email: I posted a comment on the story at the Times yesterday noting that the reporter did not attribute the Perel quotes to the story written by DBKP. My comment was never published." She included her comment to the Times:

"The reporter who wrote this story did not attribute the original source of the Perel quotes, a story at Death by 1000 Papercuts.com."

I received another email shortly thereafter from Doug Ross with basically the same message.

Though other comments to the story made after both LBG and Doug Ross' had been published, their's were not. So, someone at the Times was aware of their concerns.

This got us wondering if this practice was widespread among the major media; we then started searching the Internet.

Yikes!

At least in America, the MSM is mining blogs for stories and flipping off the original creators/writers when reminded whose work they're using.

The Associated Press commenced suing bloggers quoting AP stories in June 2008. AP's Intellectual Property Governance Coordinator Irene Keselman had this to say in a letter to Cernig, of Newshoggers:

"... you purport that the Drudge Retort's users reproduce and display AP headlines and leads under a fair use defense. Please note that contrary to your assertion, AP considers that the Drudge Retort users' use of AP content does not fall within the parameters of fair use. The use is not fair use simply because the work copied happened to be a news article and that the use is of the headline and the first few sentences only. This is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of "fair use." AP considers taking the headline and lede of a story without a proper license to be an infringement of its copyrights, and additionally constitutes "hot news" misappropriation."
--Fair Use and the Associated Press

The above mentioned dispute involved Drudge Retort using excerpts--some as small as 18 words, according to many reports--under Drudge Retort's own headlines.

AP, thy name is hypocrisy.

Larisa Alexandrovna, Huffington Post and at-Largely wrote about a disturbing experience with AP in "MSM Plagiarism Strikes Again – AP Welcome to the Party"

On March 14, 2006, the AP did their own article, left out any attribution to me or my publication and lifted not only my research but also whole sections of my article for their own (making cosmetic changes of course).

We contacted an AP senior editor and ombudsman both and both admitted to having had the article passed on to them, and both stated that they viewed us as a blog and because we were a blog, they did not need to credit us.

Alexandrovna goes on to state in the same article:

"Unfortunately this is far too common and has happened to me and to other writers and bloggers far too frequently. This time, however, we made a point of tape recording the AP apparatchiks admitting to taking our work and using it without attribution, stating "we do not credit blogs".



She then goes on to list six or seven of the most egregious examples of AP plagiarism at the time of her article, March 27, 2006.

More recently, the New York Times tried to take credit for the Iranian Missile Fauxtography.

The Iranian thugocracy doctored a photo adding in a fourth missile, most likely to cover up a failed one. The blogosphere exposed the manipulated photo. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs [Iran's Photoshopped Missile Launch ] was the first to the scene. However, the New York Times blog, The Lede, is taking credit [in a Iranian image, a missile too many] for exposing this even though their report was given much later. FOX, obviously slacking on research, also credits the lede. Mac's mind: Ny Times Commits Plagiarism on Fake Iranian Missile Photos

The above article cited Ace, of Ace of Spades HQ, [Shock: NYT Blog Claims Credit For Fauxtography Story They Didn't Break] who said:

"Whether CJ (Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs) deserves all the credit, I don’t know. I do know the NYT deserves little of it, and ought to stop claiming otherwise."

Exactly.

The New York Times, forced to eat the bitter fruit from its looney-left editorial policies, may have hit upon the only business model that allows it to survive the death spiral of falling ad revenue, circulation and stock prices: lay off its news reporters and rely on ripping off content from the Blogosphere.

But the AP and NY Times are not alone.

There is so much news theft going on, in fact, that Hamilton Nolan, of Gawker, had to explain "The Golden Rule" in The Complete Guide to Stealing New Stories:

Media outlets can only steal outright from other media outlets that are not their direct competitors, and do not fall in their same class. First-class outlets: National TV news networks (including the big three on cable), the top five national newspapers, top-level weekly news magazines, and a select few websites like Drudge. Second-class outlets: Niche TV networks, local TV news affiliates, smaller metro papers, smaller but still well-respected news magazines, well-known internet news operations that don't fall in the top handful. Third-class outlets: Trade magazines, niche magazines, smaller local papers, niche internet news sites. Fourth-class outlets: Others.

Nolan also includes tips for the aspiring news thief.

All this occurs after many pompous, blow-hard pieces have been written by ex-members of the MSM, now posing as "professors of journalism", about the defects of citizen journalists, and bloggers, in particular.

This was all touched upon in "Citizen Journalism: “911, I’d Like to Report an Unregulated Blogger”. In that piece, David Hazinsky, an ex-NBC-reporter-turned-journalism-prof had railed against the 'dangers of citizen journalism'.

The premise of citizen journalism is that regular people can now collect information and pictures with video cameras and cellphones, and distribute words and images over the Internet. Advocates argue that the acts of collecting and distributing makes these people "journalists." This is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a "citizen surgeon" or someone who can read a law book is a "citizen lawyer." Tools are merely that. Education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals. Information without journalistic standards is called gossip.

As we noted then: "One images Hazinsky in the pre-Revolutionary American colonies: he'd be the one beating on John Peter Zenger's printing press with a pitchfork--or shouting down Tom Paine."

So while the MSM dismisses bloggers and other citizen journalists as the great unwashed, it's not above "borrowing" stories from the rubes when it suits them.

As Alexandrovna noted, "What the AP and others are saying essentially is that, while "your work" is good enough for us to steal, you are not credible enough to cite."

"Trusted MSM news professionals" was our nominee for "Oxymoron of the Year".

Although DBKP did not yell, "Stop, thief!" when first alerted to the Times reporter using our work without credit, the more we researched the subject, the more it became apparent that that may have been the proper action to take.

We've been checking our email hopefully; we sincerely hope that an upbeat update will be added to this article.

We're loathe to lump the Times in with the likes of the NY Times and AP. We hope we're contacted--sooner rather than later.

by Mondoreb

NOTE: Ah my! We originally left out one source (see how easy it might be?) but caught it within 10 minutes of this article going up. We marked the quote as a quote--just forgot to include the link. It is now corrected.

Who is the Mysterious Video Commenter?



More Mystery!
Vicki Iseman Bio Returns to Alcalde & Fay Website!

Who is EllaLohan?

How did she know about Vicki Iseman and John McCain before the New York Times published the story?

Very mysterious.

EllaLohan is the name of an apparent video fancier who--weeks before the New York Times released its story about Republican presidential candidate John McCain's alleged affair with Telcom lobbyist Vicki Iseman--was dropping hints of the affair in comments affixed to videos on sites scattered around the Internet.

Mysterious.

She hinted at the relationship between Iseman and McCain which is an " an angle not even Drudge took when it reported on the lobbying angle between Iseman and McCain months ago," as reported on Radar this evening.

The Radar piece tracks some EllaLohan comments:

Here's what EllaLohan wrote on a YouTube video posted by Senator McCain's campaign: "EllaLohan (4 weeks ago): John McCain plus lobbyist Vicki Iseman equals trouble for Republicans. Just ask the New York Times."

Then EllaLohan popped up elsewhere on YouTube with a similar comment for an anti-McCain video: "EllaLohan (1 month ago): i've heard from a bunch of my d.c. friends that mccain is doing special favors for a female lobbyist, who's returning the favor, if you catch my drift. this is the story that his lawyers are trying to prevent the new york times from writing. he's a crook just like the rest of the politicians."

Ella has some knowledge of the coming John McCain-Vicki Iseman story. The question is: How did she know?

The only info found on the mysterious EllaLohan's YouTube profile is her gender—female—and age—40.

Is she an insider who couldn't resist hinting at what she really knew or Drudge clicker with a keen ability to read between the lines? Or better still a Times employee dissatisfied with the paper's hold on the article? Attempts to reach EllaLohan have not been successful.

DBKP attempted to track down EllaLohan.

Attempts by DBKP to contact her have, so far, proved fruitless.

And that's kinda mysterious.



Ella also commented on a video by Electric Light Orchestra last week, but there was no politics in that one. She wrote, "It is the Sainte-Chapelle, a 13th Century royal chapel built in Paris under Louis IX."

Not so mysterious on that one.

But here's a several comments she posted--weeks before the story broke--that we were able to run down on videos sites.

On youTube (from a cached copy of the page):
EllaLohan Jan. 23 (7 hours ago)
John McCain plus lobbyist Vicki Iseman equals trouble for Republicans. Just ask the New York Times.

For this comment, Ella's comment received a -1 from another reader.

On video site, YouTobe

EllaLohan (20 hours ago)
Ask John McCain about his lobbyist "friend" Vicki Iseman. I dare you...

This comment is nowhere to be seen now, but is available in a cached copy.

Posted on a video site Video Momentum en video.es

> EllaLohan dijo el 26-01-08 a las 23:16:
Ask John McCain about his lobbyist "friend" Vicki Iseman. I dare you...

Posted on TechVidSite, on a video entitled, "Mitt Surfing"

EllaLohan (January 26, 2008 at 10:14 pm)
Ask John McCain about his lobbyist "friend" Vicki Iseman. I dare you...

The comment is now gone, but again, it can be seen on a cached copy of the site at the time of the comment.

At funingames:
( 2 weeks ago by EllaLohan). i've heard from a bunch of my dc friends that mccain is doing special favors for a female lobbyist, who's returning the favor, ...

More EllaLohan "insight":

TechVidSite.com - Web Ad: Mittsurfing (http://www.techvidsite.com/video/EgbQviUqndg)

EllaLohan (January 26, 2008 at 10:14 pm)
Ask John McCain about his lobbyist "friend" Vicki Iseman. I dare you...

So who is EllaLohan?

Is she someone who dug up the info on Iseman and her long-standing relationship with John McCain after reading a December 20 2007 Drudge report posting?

Is she Marilyn W. Thompson, the Times reporter on the Iseman-McCain story who was reportedly so upset at the Times sitting on the story that she left and is heading back to the Washington Post?

Is Thompson a video buff?

Is she interested in Mitt Romney windsurfing videos?

Will EllaLohan reveal more about how she knew what she knew when she knew it?

Will she leave the answer to that question posted on a video?

We will probably never know the answers or the identity of the mysterious EllaLohan.

And that's probably just the way she'd want it.

Vicki Iseman Alcalde & Fay website bio and picture update: The information on lobby firm, Alcalde & Fay's website about partner, Vicki Iseman, has now reappeared. The information disappeared from the A&F site shortly after the New York Times story appeared on the Times website. Numerous sites had screenshots of the bio and picture of Iseman, however. Another mysterious occurrence.

DBKP Political Scandal Library Over 40 DBKP stories and videos on political scandals of the 2008 presidential candidates. Included are stories on Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

by Mondoreb
images:
* hermansgallery
* quizilla
Sources:
*
* funingames
* Anonymous Poster Had the goods on McCain, Times



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Fox News yesterday: "No Substantial Evidence"
Times doesn't Mention if McCain is conservative



Reader: "Times uncovered evidence that McCain's a Republican"

McCain calls Times story a "smear"

John McCain, speaking in Toledo, OH this morning categorically denied the insinuations of yesterday's New York Times story about improper conduct with lobbyist, Vicki Iseman.

"Obviously I'm very disappointed in the article. It's not true," the four-term Arizona senator told a news conference. "At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust or make a decision which in any way would not be in the public interest and would favor any one or any organization."

The Times ran an article yesterday hinted that McCain may have had a romantic affair with Iseman and that members of his staff had been concerned about appearances during the 2000 election.

Absent from the Times story were any assertions that Senator McCain was a "conservative".

McCain described Iseman as a "friend" whom he has seen on "various occasions" in Washington including fund-raisers. "I have many friends in Washington that represent various interests," he said. "I consider her a friend."

McCain did not mention if he thought Iseman was a "conservative".

Over the last three weeks, the media, McCain backers and McCain himself have maintained that the Arizona Senator is a "conservative".

This has brought a sharp response from conservative talk show hosts, conservative groups and others in the conservative cause who have crossed swords with McCain on any host of issues in his Senate tenure.

Newsbusters' Justin McCarthy had this interesting item this morning:

[Correspondent Carl Cameron of Fox News] revealed on the February 21 edition of "Fox and Friends," that Fox News came across these rumors last fall. Cameron stated that they were "unable to substantiate any of it."

In regards to the alleged affair with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, Cameron asserted that they "were able to find precisely nobody who would go on the record or even suggest off the record that there was truth to the suggestion that there had been any sort of an inappropriate personal relationship."

DBKP Political Scandal Library Over 35 stories on scandals involving the 2008 Presidential contenders. Included are DBKP stories and videos on John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama.

The lengthy Times article was basically two parts: the first part recounted the concerns of former staff members that McCain might be giving the wrong impression by hanging out with a telecom lobbyist--mostly in the 2000 election--and the remainder of the article was background on McCain's involvement, during his first senate term, in the Keating Five Scandal.

One DBKP reader commented that the only proof the Times has been able to produce is "evidence that McCain is a Republican". DBKP has been able to confirm this.



Last evening, after the story starting spreading, Iseman's employer, lobby firm Alcalde & Fay, pulled her bio and picture from it's website.

Both McCain's campaign and Iseman denied any improper conduct.

The New York Times has not yet issued a statement on whether its conduct was improper.

Several sources have begun questioning the timing and motives of the New York Times running what was essentially a background piece they had the information on after McCain's other competitors--save Mike Huckabee--had dropped from the Republican presidential race.

Both of the Times preferred candidates have scandals brewing.

The Times endorsed Barack Obama and McCain recently.

Senator Barack Obama has had allegations from Larry Sinclair over the last month that Sinclair shared sex and drugs with Obama in the back of a limo in 1999 in Gurnee, IL when Obama was an Illinois state representative.

The Times has remained silent on the Obama affair, as has the rest of the Mainstream press.

Sinclair is taking a polygraph test next week and has filed a federal lawsuit against Obama for harassment since Sinclair first made his allegations late last month.

The Times has been silent every aspect of the Sinclair allegations.

Perhaps The New York Times is, as one reader speculated, "holding the Obama material until the Democratic contest is decided--or until it goes away".

by Mondoreb
iamge: file; iview
Sources:
* FNC's Cameron found no substantial evidence in McCain/Iseman
* Today on the Campaign Trail



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

You be the Judge





Vicki Iseman (left) and Cindy McCain (right)

Some have remarked on the striking similarities between these two photos of Vicki Iseman--whom the NY Times hints had a "romantic relationship" with Senator John McCain--and Cindy McCain.


We don't want to make any judgments, but we decided to present side-by-side photos and let readers come to their own conclusions as to how similar the two may or may not be.



Someone at the Huffington Post must have thought so, too. They posted the above side-by-side comparison pix.

So: how about it?

Are there "striking similarities", as one reader put it?

by Mondoreb
[hat tip: huffingtonpost]
images: alcalde & Fay; care



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

John McCain Gave "Special Favors to Female Lobbyist"



Vicki Iseman, who is alleged by the New York Times to be the female lobbyist given "special favors" by John McCain, is a partner at Alcalde & Fay, a DC lobbying firm.

UPDATE: 10:30 pm February 20 2007 Alerted by a comment on this story, which is posted at other websites, all information about VICKI ISEMAN on the Alcalde & Fay website has now disappeared. The information and picture below was copied from the website for the original posting of this story.

From the firm's website:

Vicki Iseman, Partner, represents corporate and public clients on issues as diverse as government contracting and regulatory reform. Her experience includes representation of clients before Congress, Federal government agencies and local opinion leaders.

She has extensive experience in telecommunications, representing corporations before the House and Senate Commerce Committees. Her work on the landmark 1992 and 1996 communications bills helped secure cable access for broadcast television stations. Her experience in the communications field includes digital television conversion, satellite regulations and telecommunications ownership provisions.



She has been active in grassroots communications campaigns for clients, building community based support for legislative initiatives. Among others, she participated in the "Keep America Moving" campaign that educated community leaders on the allocation of Federal highway trust funds.

In addition, she has consulted for clients who are interested in government contracting opportunities. She has assisted corporations through the authorization and appropriation process. An active fundraiser, she has organized and participated in many political fundraising events.

A native of Pennsylvania, she holds a B.A. degree in Education from Indiana University in Pennsylvania.

Other DBKP stories about, or mentioning, the John McCain-Vicki Iseman connection:

* John McCain: New Female Lobbyist Scandal

From December 21, 2007
* John McCain and Lobbyists: Not Exactly News

* McCain Lobbyist Story: Spin, Smear or Straight Reporting?

From December 20, 2007
* John McCain Tries Spiking NY Times Story: Ghosts of the Keating Five Past?

From January 31, 2008
* John McCain's Double Talk Tango

EQUAL TIME: Other Political Candidate Scandals at DBKP * DBKP Political Scandal Library Listing of all DBKP stories and videos which involve 2008 Presidential candidates. Includes the links below and others involving Barack Obama, John Edwards, John McCain and Hillary Clinton. * DBKP John Edwards Love Child Scandal Library Over 30 DBKP stories on the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter Love Child Scandal. * Larry Sinclair: Obama, Sex, Drugs and the MSM * Obama: Gay Man Alleges Sex, Drugs with Barack in 1999

by Mondoreb
image: alcade & Fay; Alaska Report
source: Alcade & Fay website



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Cutbacks in Everything
--Except Left Wing Rhetoric



When you're Selling What No One's Buying

The big story of the Mainstream Media in the last week is cuts.

Cuts in jobs, in advertising revenue, in circulation, in ratings: in short, cuts in every meaningful indicator of how successful the Mainstream Media is.

Which is to say, they're not.

Not doing their job, not successful.

What the MSM is selling--liberal viewpoints, solutions, hand-wringing, harangues and advice--is the one area news consumers aren't buying.

Some news blurbs from the last week amplify this point.

NBC is closing their Chicago and Dallas bureaus.

NBC: Atlanta, which has managed Miami and New Orleans assignments, will add Dallas. Chicago will report in through the Northeast bureau.

The Liberal Lady, the New York Times is cutting newsroom jobs.

After years of resisting the newsroom cuts that have hit most of the industry, The New York Times will bow to growing financial strain and eliminate about 100 newsroom jobs this year, the executive editor said Thursday.

The Washington Post is closing a printing plant and offering buyouts to all employees.

Washington Post Co. will offer buyouts to employees at its flagship newspaper to cut costs as revenue and readership decline.

Buyouts will be offered to all newspaper employees. The newspaper employs 2,400 people, including 800 in news, she added. Revenue at the publishing division, which includes the newspaper, fell 8 percent to $657.2 million in the first nine months of 2007.

At the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, 100-150 jobs are being cut at each.

Tribune Co. employees were notified Wednesday that hundreds of jobs will be cut at the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and other publications — the first cutbacks since billionaire Sam Zell took the media company private last year.

In separate memos, Tribune Publisher Scott Smith said 100 jobs would be cut and his counterpart at the Times, David Hiller, said 100-150 jobs would be eliminated.

Last fall, CNN dropped Reuters--but said the move wasn't about falling ratings and cutting costs.

Honest.

But in a twist, the cable news network CNN asserted that a decision to drop the Reuters news service after 27 years was not done to cut costs.

Newsweek is cutting the amount of copies it is guaranteeing advertisers by a half million.

Newsweek magazine plans to cut its guaranteed paid circulation by 500,000 copies, according to industry magazine Advertising Age.

The 16 percent reduction would lower the number of paid subscribers Newsweek promises advertisers from 3.1 million to 2.6 million, Advertising Age reported, citing people with knowledge of the move.

About a year ago, Time announced cuts in its news operations staff. It said at the time that there was no timetable as to future cuts.

As anyone who follows news closely, the nine MSM companies above are all flagship liberal operations. Whether it's big government, Blame America First, Global Warming, more taxes and regulations or endorsement of Democrat candidates and their programs, the MSM is all liberal, all the time.

In most cases, the MSM "news" shows and editorial staffs operate as a wing of the Democrat National Committee.

Don't expect the continuing MSM death spiral to change the outlook of either the reporting or the personnel responsible for the slide.

All nine of the above MSM mouthpieces staunchly maintain that they are unbiased "news" operations.

Their viewers and readers and in many cases, their stockholders, beg to differ.

And have been for some time now.

NBC denied that they were even scaling back their operations, labeling the cutbacks as streamlining in an "effort to achieve more journalism and less bureaucracy in the newsgathering operation."

They could achieve all of the above aims by simply requiring their newsrooms to drop their liberal viewpoints by hiring a few conservatives and losing the liberal herd mentality that infects their news operations.

When the National Enquirer reported on the John Edwards Love Child Scandal in November, not one--not a single, solitary, lonely--reporter from a MSM outlet asked Edwards one, single, solitary question about it.

NOT ONE ever asked the candidate if he had been in telephone contact with Rielle Hunter--the woman the Enquirer kept under tabs for months after the campaign spirited her out of sight within 5 miles of Edwards' campaign headquarters from New York--since Hunter had found out she was pregnant.

NOT ONE.

In the meantime, their viewers and readers were buying up Enquirers by the millions and Googling "Rielle Hunter" at such a pace that the woman's name became the most-searched for term on the Internet for awhile.

The news public was buying "Rielle Hunter"--and the Mainstream press wasn't selling any. They were selling anything and everything else that they were interested in, not their potential consumers.

[DBKP John Edwards Love Child Scandal Library of 25 stories on John Edwards, Rielle Hunter, the National Enquirer and the MSM news blackout on the story.]

The MSM tries to put the blame for their decline on the medium and hopes to counter it by creating blogs on the Internet. One suspects that they won't be selling anything different on their MSM blogs--and the public won't be doing any buying of their news there, either.

The Mainstream Media should borrow a page from the playbook of one of their heroes, Bill Clinton and have signs printed up:

ITMS

It's the message, stupid.



So, our advice to the Mainstream Media, as a member of the right wing blogosphere:

"Stay just the way you are, baby. Never change, we love you just the way you are!"

by Mondoreb
image: spittleandink
Sources:
* NBC News Streamlines News Bureaus
* New York Times Plans to Cut 100 NewsRoom Jobs
* Washington Post Cuts
* Post's Newsweek Cuts Circulation by 500,000
* CNN Cuts a Wire to invest in itself
* Tribune Company announces hundreds of jobs cut



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.