Remember when I wrote that article on Feburary 11th about baphomet doxxing a Federal Judge and 40 BPD officers?
Sam Machkovich does. See, he seems to be cribbing off my work, and not giving me credit where credit's due. Machkovich wrote a highly derivative article on Feburary 12 for Ars Technica, about the same topic, making the same points, without so much as a Thanks To Margaret Pless for Writing About this Yesterday on Daily Kos.
And then, two weeks later, Machkovich demanded I correct my headline on Twitter when I noted him in a list of articles which referred to Jace Connors/ Jan Rankowski as a troll, all of which were asking (apparently in earnest) whether or not Jace/Jan should be taken seriously.
Ars Technica? If you want to offer me a job, I'm listening. I guarantee I can cover this Internet News thing faster than Sam Machkovich, since he seems to be copying my stories.
This isn't the first time Sam Machkovich has reported on stories I broke about two weeks after the fact, then given me lip on Twitter about it. He also claims I misrepresented a story of his about Jace Connors when I called it a puff piece. Nevermind that he earnestly asked "Is it a joke or a threat?" in one of his paragraph headers.
Notice how I also covered the story about Jace Connors/ Jan Rankowsky's terrifying harassment of Brianna Wu, nearly a month before Machkovich wrote about it.
It seems like when Machkovich isn't writing stories I posted here, he's writing headlines about stuff he saw on TV:
Law & Order SVU takes on GamerGate, everyone loses
or
Netflix launches, then yanks, third season episodes of House of Cards
or
Modern Family episode takes place entirely on OS X desktop
Normally, I wouldn't be this upset if some slacker wasting company time on Netflix wanted to crib off my work. I published it in part that some more influential journalist might see it and pick up the story.
But Sam didn't even link to my work, or attribute it to me, or even contact me except to get offended when I called him out days later over a different derivative article he wrote, based in part off my reporting from nearly a month earlier. And Machkovich is paid by Ars Technica (itself a subsidiary of Conde Nast) to write the arts and technology beat. He's also written for many other publications.
I expected a little more professionalism from paid technology journalism than to have my work copied without attribution. I certainly expected better than to be arrogantly dismissed by the Machkovich when I confronted him about his cribbing on Twitter.
I want an apology, and credit from Ars Technica where credit is due. I'm sure Machkovich would feel the same way if he were in my position.