Sure he’s a comedian. So was Ronald Reagan when he made movies with a chimp and Stuart Smalley before he became a Senator. Right now, Stewart is doing the best media policing in the country….
The National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA) presented George Gombossy with NACA’s 2009 Media Award at their annual meeting held last month in Philadelphia. The award last year was given to two reporters from Business Week.
Gombossy was the first investigative consumer columnist in the Hartford Courant’s history, and unfortunately, probably its last, as he was fired on Aug. 14, 2009, after refusing to “be nice†to the papers’ major advertisers. For over three years, Mr. Gombossy served as the advocate for Connecticut’s consumers, working with thousands of readers who sent him complaints and tips. His Watchdog columns resulted in more than a dozen state investigations and improved customer service at many local and regional companies. He continues to rattle the chain of big business with his www.CtWatchdog.com website.
New Haven employment lawyer Joseph D. Garrison has amended my wrongful discharge lawsuit against The Courant and its parent Tribune Co. by claiming that I was fired for following the Courant’s written News Mission statement.
The News Mission statement was developed in early 2002 by a group of editors and reporters (including me) as a code by which we expected ourselves to follow. We published the statement and it is still on The Courant’s website as what I consider a promise to readers.
It’s sad that one of the best journalists of the day is Jon Stewart, and his research team of about a million. But by lacing his commentary with hard evidence, he’s doing what most news…
The family of the mother who died in 2007Â trying to win a video game console for her kids received a $16.5 million jury award. Read about the strange case of Jennifer Strange here. The…
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.
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…
The giant hoax perpetrated on the world and the media by a greedy and stupid Colorado father is causing a firestorm of backlash against the media. It shouldn’t. Colorado parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, are…
Radio-info.com’s Sean Ross reports that Michael Jackson’s new single “This is It” isn’t it on a lot of radio stations. The song, which I figured to be an international hit, based on the response to…
Check here to download songs from his soon-to-be released album. Here at the watchdog, we give you the best deals! Waits and his label, Anti, are letting fans have seven of the 17 songs to…
Dave Lieber, the award-winning national consumer columnist from Texas, is joining our blogging team.
I’ve seen the Craigslist ads and assumed they were bogus. Wrong. Google is hiring people to work at home and evaluate search. This story is the most in-depth explanation of how Google looks at search…
(In response to loyal reader Kevin’s request) As a media critic, I’m astounded by the way both sides of the U.S. political landscape pick up and put down arguments they were passionate about when they…
Concert promoter Live Nation will let fans buy a $50 now that will allow them into shows through the end of the year. That is an incredible deal, although with some small print. Sold out…
Here’s a nifty satire that was posted moments after Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s thank you speech at the Video Music Awards Sunday. Kanye was as rude as South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson. Watch it…
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.
Here’s a nice New York Times story about the rise of low power radio, filling in the gaps where the big conglomerates have failed. There’s hope for more small stations, which do what radio promised…
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…