Best Buy, the nation’s largest electronic retailer, has two major legal battles on its hands as it defends itself against accusations from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and New York class action lawyers Kantrowitz, Goldhamer…
We are thrilled to announce that Cheryl Jones-Reardon, CEO of The Mindful Path, LLC, is joining our Ctwatchdog.com team as a regular blogger. Cheryl lives in central Connecticut, holds a Master’s degree in Exercise Science…
Andrew Kreig, a former Courant reporter and now a nationally known investigative reporter, is joining our team of bloggers at CtWatchdog.com.
Andrew is a free-lance investigative reporter, lawyer and radio host based in Washington.
His primary focus for the past year has been exploring allegations of official corruption and other misconduct in federal agencies, and also advising several nonprofit groups fostering cutting-edge applications within the communications industries.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today announced a $1.3 million settlement with The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., resolving claims that it participated in several anticompetitive schemes that illegally inflated insurance and reinsurance costs nationwide.
The Courant has begun its defense in the wrongful termination lawsuit I brought against it last month by claiming that losing this case would have a detrimental effect on all newspapers and other media in…
Our travel blogger, Denis Horgan, former Courant editor and columnist, wrote a stinging column in his blog today critical of our old bosses for running stories by two people without disclosing their obvious conflicts of…
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s investigation into consumer complaints that Sleepy’s delivered used mattresses instead of new ones has expanded to include allegations from 25 customers that they were sold mattresses that had bedbugs. Sleepy’s adamantly denies…
Dave Lieber, the award-winning national consumer columnist from Texas, is joining our blogging team.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today announced a landmark $25.1 million agreement with drug maker Eli Lilly and Company for allegedly marketing its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa for unapproved uses, and concealing the drug’s serious side effects, for more than a decade.
Blumenthal sued Eli Lilly last year for corrupting physicians, pharmacies and administrators at nursing homes and youth detention centers as part of a massive illegal marketing campaign to promote Zyprexa for unapproved off-label uses, including for the treatment of children.
As promised, New Haven attorney Joseph Garrison has filed my wrongful termination lawsuit against The Courant, accusing the country’s oldest continuously published newspaper of violating its written News Mission, or what I call its ethics policy, when it fired me last month for refusing to “be nice” to major advertisers.
Facing expulsion, five major Better Business Bureau chapters adopted the controversial A to F letter ratings for businesses, which has come under attack from consumer advocates and some businesses. New York City, metropolitan Houston, Nebraska/South Dakota,…
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said today that Sleepy’s has failed to provide him answers to all his critical questions regarding the giant mattress retailer’s business practices. Blumenthal, who in July began an investigation into…
On the subject of newspapers chewing their own legs off, the Hartford Courant, is in the process of doing just that these days, first having stumbled into a plagiarism scandal, now by issuing opaque statements while disciplining employees for poorly executing a policy that was bad to begin with.
Connecticut news circles have been in a tizzy the last couple weeks after the Journal Inquirer, the Courant’s archrival, published accusations that the Tribune Company’s Hartford outlet was lifting local coverage of the JI and other Connecticut papers without their permission.
After pretending for weeks that there were no unusual ethics issues in stealing hundreds of stories from small competitors, The Courant announced today that six employees were being punished. Richard Graziano, the publisher of both…
INDIANAPOLIS – The Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics Committee released the following statement regarding the Hartford Courant’s recent admission of and apology for using other newspaper’s stories without duly attributing credit. The statement issued by the committee is as follows:
The Hartford Courant has acknowledged using stories from other Connecticut newspapers recently without giving them credit. The director of content has apologized and vowed the mistake won’t be repeated.
The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists plainly exhorts newspapers and journalists, “Never plagiarize.” When a newspaper invests reporting and editing time to produce a story, that story should not be used by another outlet without permission and without informing readers who actually did the work.
Many media outlets aggregate information online, summarizing a story and then linking to the original. The Courant failed to carry the credit from its online version to its print version.
“However it happened, the Courant violated fundamental standards,” said Andy Schotz, the chairman of SPJ’s Ethics Committee. “This was theft.”
Integrity and credibility, two of the most important values in journalism, demand that all media outlets be clear about the source of stories they did not produce. Failure to follow that guideline results in plagiarism, taking credit for someone else’s work, as it did in this case.
Pfizer, a major Connecticut employer, has agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle allegations that it marketed drugs for unapproved uses and paid doctors to promote and prescribe certain medications. The company will pay nearly…
Drugmaker Pfizer Inc. will pay a record $2.3 billion fine for how it marketed Bextra and other drugs, Reuters and the Associated Press reported this morning. The agreement, which is still under seal, is to…
As the Courant continues to be under the “Ethics” microsoft, it might useful to see how the largest newspaper in Connecticut handled the incindiary charges filed by a veteran television reporter at The Courant’s sister TV station – Fox 61.
Television personality Shelly Sindland filed a sex and age discrimination against Fox 61 and Richard Graziano – who is publisher of both The Courant and the TV station – on July 7. The Tribune, owner of both The Courant and Fox 61, has until Friday to respond.
It was reported that day by several news outlets, including ctnewsjunkie.com, where you can see her actual complaint.
Copyright © 2009, CtWatchdog.com In a major victory for Connecticut consumers, the city of Hartford has agreed to drastically revise its towing policies: ending its policies that took advantage of those whose cars were stolen or whose cars…
 Late last night The Courant – in a copyrighted statement - apologized for its blatant, and wholesale plagiarism of other newspapers.   Some questions come to mind:   This has been going on for weeks, it…