Thieving Parasitical Journalists
Remember this?
Well the Evening Standard stole the picture for that afternoon’s late edition:
Click to enlarge.No picture credit, no payment. Associated Newspapers made £83m last year. For some reason employees of Associated Newspapers seem to be the the most common thieving parasites – lifting stories without credit or payment. Guido has had a few run-ins with diarists, most of which have been settled amicably over a bottle or two. Not Sebastian Shakespeare however, he is the editor of the Londoner’s Diary in the Standard and he is a thieving ****ing magpie. Latest examples: Exhibit A, Exhibit B. He makes no bones about it, in a heated row last year Sebastian admitted he steals Guido’s work and “so what?” Harry Phibbs who freelances for Londoner’s Diary subsequently had lunch with Guido and said that it should be taken as a compliment. Like a burglar being caught and saying to his victim “never mind, we both have great taste in old masterpieces”. F*** off you thief.
After yet another round of story thieving by the Telegraph’s Andrew Pierce, a hack who has built his career on nicking other people’s stories, he denied lifting the story from Guido on the technicality that he had copied it from Private Eye, who had lifted it verbatim from Guido.
Guido always tries to credit the source of a story with a link. It is not just honest and good manners, it pays dividends in traffic terms. Here is the difference in understanding between online writers and dead tree writers. Bloggers understand that if you increase the usefulness of your site with useful links, you get more traffic. Something that the dead tree press has only just realised – see here, here and here to learn why linking is a good strategy for dead-tree mediasaurs online. Pierce, Shakespeare and the rest take note. A case of Margaux is better than a link mind you.
If you rob someone else’s work, continuously, and pass it off as your own, you will be named and shamed. Meantime an invoice is in the post for the stolen picture.
