Imagine an investigative reporter at say the Washington Post. They have been working on a blockbuster investigative story for months. They have slowly pieced the story together by months of patient investigative reporting work. They have written the story up, knowing the story will get high readership, so they put considerable effort into the writing. Then the story is published.
Everyone is a blogger these days, including reporters at newspapers. The New York Times will probably report, in a second hand way, that the Washington Post has published a blockbuster news story. The New York Times story will tell New York Times readers a little about what the blockbuster Washington Post story said.
Now imagine that a blogger at Daily Kos cuts and pastes three paragraphs, attaches a title and a tag, and hits the publish button. But using the secondary New York Times story for the cut and paste, not the original Washington Post. “Breaking: New York Times Reports Blockbuster Stuff,” the blog post title says.
This practice is, for one thing, unfair to the investigative reporter who put considerable effort into developing and writing the blockbuster story. They should get the credit for their work.
It is also inaccurate.
It also doesn’t let Daily Kos readers assess the credibility of the story using information about the general credibility of the source.
It also probably means that the blogger didn’t really read the news story they are blogging about, at least not with any care. If they had carefully read the second hand New York Times story they are blogging about, they would have noticed and clicked on the link to the original Washington Post.
And the blogging practice also does not meet the writing standards expected of American sixth graders.
The blogging practice doesn’t meet the writing standards expected of American third graders, really. Third graders are not allowed to just cut and paste three paragraphs from a New York Times article, put the title “Breaking” on it, and turn it in.
But the blogging practice does not meet sixth grade standards in a specific and interrelated way.
American fifth graders write from “sources, ” and must be able to provide “a list of sources”. In a developmental increase from the fifth grade, sixth graders work from “credible sources”:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.1.B
Support claim(s) with clear reasons and relevant evidence, using credible sources and demonstrating an understanding of the topic or text.
And they must provide “basic bibliographic information for sources.”
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.8
Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources; assess the credibility of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and providing basic bibliographic information for sources.
Working from credible sources, assessing the credibility of sources, and providing basic bibliographic information for sources so credibility can be assessed, are an interrelated set of skills that American sixth graders are expected to master.
Now, imagine that an information outfit that many people consider unreliable publishes a story which would appeal to the existing views of some liberals but not others, on a divisive issue within the liberal world.
And that writers at Newsweek, say, and Raw Story, and Medium, pick up on this story from the source.
And then this story gets blogged about at Daily Kos, as if it was coming from Newsweek, instead. Readers will not have been provided the basic bibliographic information they should want to help assess credibility of the story.
Tell readers where a news story really comes from when blogging about it. Read news stories enough to know where they really come from before blogging. From the reader side here, don’t recommend blog posts that don’t rise to sixth grade writing standards.
Please.