‘At best plagiarism, at worst outright theft,’ one newspaper publisher says; Courant covers towns with other papers’ reporting
By Christine McCluskey
Journal Inquirer
Journal Inquirer
Newspaper editors and reporters across the state are noticing a new trend: Their local coverage is being copied daily by the Hartford Courant.
In some cases the Courant appears to have lifted information from the other papers in its entirety without any attribution.
Papers notice a change
Bristol Press and New Britain Herald Publisher Michael E. Schroeder says he has not yet fully analyzed how much the Courant has copied the work of his newspapers, but “we know that it’s happening.â€
Reporting from the Bristol and New Britain papers has been lifted with “minimal or no attribution†by the Courant, Schroeder says. He says one of his reporters first noticed the copying a few weeks ago.
But either way, editors say, the Courant is using for free and making money from a product other papers pay to produce, and they want it to stop. http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2009/08/29/page_one/doc4a97e2769e42d990029540.txt
In most cases the Courant has been attributing the reporting to the newspapers being copied, which include the Journal Inquirer, Bristol Press, New Britain Herald, Torrington Register-Citizen, and Waterbury Republican-American.
