Blatant plagiarism obviously is wrong on many levels. And the subtler types of “borrowing” that tend to happen regularly in local media also poison the journalistic air.

Often, when a journalist rehashes someone else’s work without giving proper credit, it isn’t some sort of creative effort to remix or add value to that work. It’s an unfair attempt to colonize the story and take ownership of it.

As an aspect of pack or herd journalism, it often represents some of the laziest and most unethical practices in the business, as outlined in the Global Media Journal by University of Central Florida researchers Jonathan Matusitz and Gerald-Mark Breen.

This practice conflicts with the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, undermines the larger journalism community and reflects poorly on the individuals involved.

This isn’t just a Hawaii issue, of course, nor is it new. The SPJ code specifically points a finger at “the traditional broadcast news outlet,” always looking for content, and to TV news’ propensity to take something “from another news site without crediting the original source.” The code declares that kind of behavior a form of misuse.

Claiming Cook Lauer’s Scoop

We can look back in time, like a media archaeologist, and find rich examples. Take the Billy Kenoi scandal, which has the Hawaii County mayor in all sorts of legal trouble now. Nancy Cook Lauer of West Hawaii Today broke this story – exposing Kenoi’s personal purchases on his county credit card – in a report published on March 29, 2015. Without her reporting, this story simply wouldn’t exist.

The next day, KHON jumped in, with reporter Kristine Uyeno using the verbal link of “here’s what we know so far,” “I found out” and “I also found out that,” while three times inserting “KHON2” into the text of the accompanying web story.

Uyeno noted both in print and on the air (a bit breathlessly, by the way) one of her primary contributions to this story: Club Evergreen’s hours of operation. She also noted that KHON2 “found out” that disciplinary action can be taken if a county credit card is used for personal reasons or to buy alcoholic beverages. That journalistic digging involved simply reading the first line of Cook Lauer’s original piece.

That journalistic digging involved simply reading the first line of Cook Lauer’s original piece.

Two days later, on April 1, Hawaii News Now’s reporter Rick Daysog latched onto this story, too, with such verbal phrases as “there are new revelations” and “once the scandal surfaced,” adding in the written account that, “earlier this week, Big Island Mayor Billy Kenoi said he used his government credit card,” as if that statement were something that just emerged from the ether, or as part of idle conversation in the town hall.

In the written account, Daysog did toss a morsel of credit to West Hawaii Today, by writing that the Big Island paper found two questionable charges (for a surfboard and bicycle equipment). But the way that attribution was written, it appeared that HNN was leading this investigation and West Hawaii Today only had contributed a small part to the overall story, not initiated it.

Neither of the television news stations credited Cook Lauer by name. (KITV also reported on this story on April 1, but its coverage was not easily accessible on its web site or through alternative searches).

Giving Credit Where It’s Due

Civil Beat’s Chad Blair, on the day the Kenoi story broke, immediately attributed the reporting to its original source, from the first words of the piece and with a hyperlink to it. The Star-Advertiser, a few days later, also gave proper credit to West Hawaii Today. Those are examples of how distinguishing appropriate credit and then recirculating and remixing a story with new contributions actually contributes power (and even adds value). When that credit is missing, the new iteration of the story diminishes or dismisses the original reporting.

Small-circulation publications on neighboring islands and digital-only publications, such as Civil Beat, are susceptible to such cherry-picking by other media organizations, especially those that broadcast freely over public airwaves or physically dominate space in downtown Honolulu with their newsstands.

Last month, for example, another Daysog story looked suspiciously like an unattributed rewrite job. This time, the original piece appeared in Civil Beat. Nick Grube had dug into the financial holdings of Colbert Matsumoto, a recently appointed member of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation board, and found that he had several undisclosed pieces of property along that rail line – very valuable pieces of property – that inevitably would be affected by his decisions on the board.

The follow-up coverage by Hawaii News Now seems more than a coincidence, since Matsumoto was appointed on April 20; Grube’s story was published on May 17, and Daysog’s piece – reiterating much of the same material that Grube revealed – appeared the next day.

Daysog used the latching-on trick of finding a representative “rail critic” to mouth the core concern raised by Grube’s piece, without mentioning that Grube raised it; then he rewrote the issues also raised by Grube, again, without mentioning Grube or Civil Beat. So whose story is that? How fair, or ethical, is that?

This gray area emerges when journalists add bits and pieces to a story already in circulation. Sometimes, those are valuable contributions that make the story even better. Many times, though, those added parts are just a method for extracting and taking credit.

Press Release Journalism

While that sort of incrementalism – arguably, of value – takes place, another sketchy sub-current of local news is press release journalism. That’s when a press release goes out and “busy” journalists just plug that press release directly into their channel as is.

Most journalists at least will ask a question or two to sort of stake a claim on the story, as they do when trying to take over a piece from another media source. Yet sometimes, they don’t even do that much, as illustrated by this recent Clayton Wakida web piece for KITV, literally titled (and these errors are his, not mine): “New airport signs direct give visitors beach safety advice.”

That incoherent headline is followed by this jumble of an introduction:

“The Hawaii State Department of Health in partnership with the City & County of Honolulu; the Counties of Hawaii, Kauai, and Maui; Hawaiian Lifeguard Association, Department of Transportation; and Hawaii Tourism Authority is kicking off a new initiative to share life-saving advice on ocean safety and drowning prevention with travelers statewide.”

And on the story went, just like the press release circulated by Wakida’s ghost writer, Janice Okubo, a communication officer in the Department of Health.

Expecting Better

Instead of finding an unpaid intern, or some other sort of rookie involved, I instead learned, through the KITV web site, that Wakida has been working for the station for more than 15 years, including serving as its digital media manager for the past five.

No public-relations people are going to complain when their press releases get published, of course, regardless of who claims credit for it. The journalism community also tends to tolerate the re-circulators, because what are they going to do about it? But audience members who recognize these behaviors are in a position to demand better, by voting to give their attention to media sources who do the best original reporting.

Journalists, meanwhile, should give their colleagues at other media organizations credit for the work that they do.

Wouldn’t each of them like that respect in return?

So it starts somewhere, and that place is giving credit, or, as the SPJ code succinctly advises: “always attribute.”