Gawker did cite the Post, albeit in a roundabout way. Also, Gawker did not include the entire text or even a majority of the article’s text so plagiarism isn’t an issue. FTM the text quoted is small enough to be argued as fair use under copyright law.

One would think the Post would be thankful for the added traffic and corresponding revenue from ad impressions. But I guess they’d rather lose money then gain popularity. They must be an anti-profit company instead of a non- or for-profit concern.

Got to go with the Post on this one. As the recent Michael Jackson situation discussion pointed out, blogging is looked at as less than reliable because it isn’t run through legal or a fact checker. No subscriptions to paid services who feed leads and ideas.

No contributions to the maintenance of a wire service where member media has license to use each others product with the implied adherence to standards and ethics.

Ever see bloggers fired for plagiarism? Making up sources?

Would this be an issue if the Washington Times did the same thing?

Did Gawker get paid?

Seriously, the Post pays the reporter and all the other overhead and someone is getting financial gain without sharing in the expense of producing the product.

If I was traditional media becoming less relevant by the day because it couldn’t compete with the instant delivery, I’d have a problem handing my competition a rusty knife to cut my nuts off.

It would be interesting to see what the blogging nation would be like if they didn’t have the traditional media to use. It’s not likely the bloggers would go out and start gathering the news themselves.

The citizen journalists are providing a needed service, it keeps the possibility of the media manipulating the facts for their benefit. We are far better off with the current situation.

But it is a perfectly valid argument to question the fairness of using someone else’s resources for profit.