SOR
Unicron
Posts: 2,611
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Post by SOR on Oct 14, 2013 4:34:14 GMT -5
It's funny that so many people with a passing role in the wrestling business (At best) are such massive massive marks for themselves.
I wonder how "Mike Johnson" feels that this wrestling fan of 10 years doesn't know who he is.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Oct 14, 2013 5:31:44 GMT -5
This isn't like repeating football related news from a multimillion dollar organization where there's a huge audience to share, it's like setting up a website called 'The West Doldrum Post' and taking 90% of your news stories from 'The West Doldrum Gazette', like taking news stories from a local paper run by a handful of people that rely on subscribers and advertising in order to keep going. Much like local news, the audience for wrestling is relatively tiny and even if these people link to their source, very few of the people who visit the mirror sites will click back and provide any traffic if they quote the bulk of the content of the report in full. On top of that you have his news sandwiched between things that are taken from elsewhere that are often made up, damaging his credibility people start to associate his name with these things, which makes it harder for him to attract visitors and find people in wrestling willing to talk to him. I can see why it would irritate Mike Johnson when he encounters the people running these things at shows and on social media and they act like he's operating an Etsy store or Tumblr that could do with the exposure, rather than leaving him fighting for an even tinier slice of an already tiny pie without contributing a thing. News aggregation sites and unpaid 'journalist' bloggers may well be commonplace now, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing and that journalists should be pleased about it. It's funny that so many people with a passing role in the wrestling business (At best) are such massive massive marks for themselves. I wonder how "Mike Johnson" feels that this wrestling fan of 10 years doesn't know who he is. Imagine working hard to build a business, only to have people spring up doing the same thing, piggybacking from what you're doing with fewer overheads because they're not doing all the work (or any in this case) and are just running it as a hobby or to supplement their income and see how you feel. Getting pissed over it isn't being a mark for oneself, it's just a natural human reaction. As for now knowing who he is, that's probably a good thing, he hasn't become bigger than the news he covers and isn't trying to become a pseudo celebrity like others in his field.
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paywindah
Dennis Stamp
He's goin' to da paywindah here on da muddaship TBS.
Posts: 3,678
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Post by paywindah on Oct 14, 2013 9:35:24 GMT -5
With the "stealing" comments, I'm guessing he's more referring to the stuff he posts in the Elite section for paid subscribers first. Most of that news is posted on the public side of the site a day or so later, but I could see how other sites (who do subscribe to the Elite section) taking that news early and posting it on their site for free can hurt his business.
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Reflecto
Hank Scorpio
The Sorceress' Knight
Posts: 6,847
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Post by Reflecto on Oct 14, 2013 11:05:07 GMT -5
This isn't like repeating football related news from a multimillion dollar organization where there's a huge audience to share, it's like setting up a website called 'The West Doldrum Post' and taking 90% of your news stories from 'The West Doldrum Gazette', like taking news stories from a local paper run by a handful of people that rely on subscribers and advertising in order to keep going. Much like local news, the audience for wrestling is relatively tiny and even if these people link to their source, very few of the people who visit the mirror sites will click back and provide any traffic if they quote the bulk of the content of the report in full. On top of that you have his news sandwiched between things that are taken from elsewhere that are often made up, damaging his credibility people start to associate his name with these things, which makes it harder for him to attract visitors and find people in wrestling willing to talk to him. I can see why it would irritate Mike Johnson when he encounters the people running these things at shows and on social media and they act like he's operating an Etsy store or Tumblr that could do with the exposure, rather than leaving him fighting for an even tinier slice of an already tiny pie without contributing a thing. News aggregation sites and unpaid 'journalist' bloggers may well be commonplace now, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing and that journalists should be pleased about it. But even with that example, it's still not the same. In your example again- if you had that website saying "The West Doldrum Post" and you stole a column from "The West Doldrum Gazette", that's plagiarism and thievery. But, if the "West Doldrum Gazette" puts a news report of just the facts going on for a local news piece, and the West Doldrum Post does the same thing- the facts will all be the same either way, because the news report is just the facts. If you're stealing columns or opinion pieces, you aren't a real journalist- but facts are facts, no matter who originally reported the facts. All you can do is at least give credit to the person who originally reported the facts and run with it.Maybe there's a huge audience for football news more than a huge audience for wrestling news, but just like you wouldn't expect a football news outlet to say "Well, we lost the scoop for Adrian Peterson's son dying- we just have to act like it never happened". you can't expect a wrestling news outlet to say "Mike Johnson scooped us on Bray Wyatt's injury- we have to act like he's 100%."
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Post by rapidfire187 on Oct 14, 2013 19:42:04 GMT -5
I assume he was referring to people that post his news, and only his news on their sites.
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Post by Heinz Doofenschmirtz on Oct 15, 2013 8:44:10 GMT -5
Wrestling journalism is like film journalism, it's filled with a bunch of people who discovered they have no skills to make it in the industry so they report on it like they're part of the industry. At worst they're pretentious idiots with little to no knowledge of what they're reporting on. At best, they're remoras floating around feeding on the scraps of the sharks. One is hardly better than the other simply because they get the bigger scraps.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Oct 15, 2013 9:07:38 GMT -5
Wrestling journalism is like film journalism, it's filled with a bunch of people who discovered they have no skills to make it in the industry so they report on it like they're part of the industry. At worst they're pretentious idiots with little to no knowledge of what they're reporting on. At best, they're remoras floating around feeding on the scraps of the sharks. One is hardly better than the other simply because they get the bigger scraps. As a freelance film journalist...you're not that far off.
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Post by Red Impact on Oct 15, 2013 10:49:36 GMT -5
Most of them were good points, save for this: If Johnson himself was a real journalist, then HE would know that using someone else's news, and giving them full credit, is perfectly fair because it IS a NEWS UPDATE. If Mike Johnson started working for the AP/UPI/Reuters and his articles started going up over their wire services to be sent to newspapers around the company, they're not stealing his news- because it IS news. Saying that a news update he wrote, and which a website uses and gives him full credit for it, is his own news and unable to be used by anyone else is either saying he does not understand what journalism can be, or he's saying "I make most of my news updates up" (in which case he has a point for plagiarism- but that's an even bigger issue than someone else taking his news updates.) That's not quite the same thing. AP/Reuters/UPI are cooperative services. You join them and get to use their stories that they develop, and in turn they may pick up on your stories. Or you pay for the right to use their stories and they can't use yours. That's different from taking someone else's story without their permission and posting it on your site. You didn't sign an agreement with them, you're not providing them with stories for your site, you're just taking their work in it's entirety and posting it on yours. It's not a matter of "I scooped you so you can't report it" as much as it is "I wrote this story and you don't have a right to publish it without my permission."
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Reflecto
Hank Scorpio
The Sorceress' Knight
Posts: 6,847
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Post by Reflecto on Oct 15, 2013 11:13:03 GMT -5
That's not quite the same thing. AP/Reuters/UPI are cooperative services. You join them and get to use their stories that they develop, and in turn they may pick up on your stories. Or you pay for the right to use their stories and they can't use yours. That's different from taking someone else's story without their permission and posting it on your site. You didn't sign an agreement with them, you're not providing them with stories for your site, you're just taking their work in it's entirety and posting it on yours. It's not a matter of "I scooped you so you can't report it" as much as it is "I wrote this story and you don't have a right to publish it without my permission." In defense here as well, at least Johnson did elaborate the issue on his Facebook during replies: Add that to the mix, and yeah- it suddenly becomes more reasonable.
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Post by Red Impact on Oct 15, 2013 12:36:22 GMT -5
That's not quite the same thing. AP/Reuters/UPI are cooperative services. You join them and get to use their stories that they develop, and in turn they may pick up on your stories. Or you pay for the right to use their stories and they can't use yours. That's different from taking someone else's story without their permission and posting it on your site. You didn't sign an agreement with them, you're not providing them with stories for your site, you're just taking their work in it's entirety and posting it on yours. It's not a matter of "I scooped you so you can't report it" as much as it is "I wrote this story and you don't have a right to publish it without my permission." In defense here as well, at least Johnson did elaborate the issue on his Facebook during replies: Add that to the mix, and yeah- it suddenly becomes more reasonable. Yeah, I can see how people misconstrued what he said. It's a fair statement from him but you could easily take it to mean something ridiculous, so it's good that he clarified.
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Post by Long A, Short A on Oct 15, 2013 12:54:57 GMT -5
I know hindsight double talk when I see it, so I don't see any reason in his follow up statement. I've also heard my fair share of "I invented water" speeches from this man, so I don't take anything he says at face value.
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amaron
Samurai Cop
I yam what I yam.
Posts: 2,212
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Post by amaron on Oct 17, 2013 10:37:33 GMT -5
This brings up a question in my mind: Why don't people just go to PWInsider for wrestling news?
For me, it's because that site has/had been rife with ridiculous amounts of ads going on 10+ years now. Even with AdBlock it's still a pain. I'd rather go somewhere else.
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Post by Djm Doesn't Find You Funny on Oct 17, 2013 11:41:07 GMT -5
It's funny that so many people with a passing role in the wrestling business (At best) are such massive massive marks for themselves. I wonder how "Mike Johnson" feels that this wrestling fan of 10 years doesn't know who he is. It would probably make him believe that that "fan" happily keeps his head buried in the sand, only to pop up he's given a new list of talking points by the carnies in the business.
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Post by Long A, Short A on Oct 17, 2013 15:17:20 GMT -5
This brings up a question in my mind: Why don't people just go to PWInsider for wrestling news? For me, it's because that site has/had been rife with ridiculous amounts of ads going on 10+ years now. Even with AdBlock it's still a pain. I'd rather go somewhere else. That's one of the reasons I don't mess with them anymore. I don't trust their news because of the all the pop-ups and crap they allow on their site. This brings back bad memories of my brother having to totally rejigger my old computer to get all the PWwild tangent crap off of it.
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saintpat
El Dandy
Release the hounds!!!
Posts: 7,664
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Post by saintpat on Oct 17, 2013 21:16:50 GMT -5
Most of them were good points, save for this: If Johnson himself was a real journalist, then HE would know that using someone else's news, and giving them full credit, is perfectly fair because it IS a NEWS UPDATE. If Mike Johnson started working for the AP/UPI/Reuters and his articles started going up over their wire services to be sent to newspapers around the company, they're not stealing his news- because it IS news. Saying that a news update he wrote, and which a website uses and gives him full credit for it, is his own news and unable to be used by anyone else is either saying he does not understand what journalism can be, or he's saying "I make most of my news updates up" (in which case he has a point for plagiarism- but that's an even bigger issue than someone else taking his news updates.) Those -- AP/UPI/Reuters -- are called news services. News outlets pay to use their stuff. It's not stealing -- a non-AP subscriber (newspaper, television, radio, website) that uses an AP story will get sued and lose, because those stories are copyrighted. Johnosn is right ethically. He's referring to aggregating -- like Rajah.com, which does very little to no reporting of its own and just sums up what others report, but links them. If you link it with a short summary it's OK. If you copy and paste it and say Wrestling Whatchamacallit is reporting: blah blah blah, it's called plagiarism and they can sue you over it ... but it's a costly process and if the entity you are suing doesn't have any resources all that's likely to happen is that you'll win a judgment that you can never collect. If, on the other hand, the entity that steals material has resources, you can collect and maybe even put them out of business -- that's why you don't see the New York Times or CNN copying and pasting other people's material, because they (a) aren't theives and (b) would lose a lot if they did so and were taken to court. Because he or someone else reports on something doesn't mean someone else can't report on it -- but if they are journalists what they will do is REPORT on it ... they will pick up the phone and call their sources and try to verify it. If they can verify it, they can report it and not credit anyone else. If they can't, they can write a summary of it and give full credit BUT NOT copy and paste and steal the words, the work, of someone else. j
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Post by Medicinal Thunder Liger on Oct 21, 2013 8:36:48 GMT -5
to be honest I thought at first he meant creative writers. and all the news drizzles down from Meltzer anyway everybody knows it.
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ratetankmark
Samurai Cop
Equalist Lex Luthor
RIP Rik Mayall, you blimmen genius - Ria Vandervis on Rik Mayall
Posts: 2,426
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Post by ratetankmark on Oct 21, 2013 11:27:49 GMT -5
How many people actually make a living being a full-time "wrestling writer"? There's 1 that I'm aware of. I know of a guy called Fin Martin, who is one of the most irritating wrestling writers ever because all he does is whine and cry.
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ratetankmark
Samurai Cop
Equalist Lex Luthor
RIP Rik Mayall, you blimmen genius - Ria Vandervis on Rik Mayall
Posts: 2,426
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Post by ratetankmark on Oct 21, 2013 12:37:00 GMT -5
It's funny that so many people with a passing role in the wrestling business (At best) are such massive massive marks for themselves. I wonder how "Mike Johnson" feels that this wrestling fan of 10 years doesn't know who he is. You really need to get over yourself dude, is everyone who writes about wrestling a mark for themself, as long as they put forward their points with maturity and if I was a wrestler I personally wouldn't give a shit that you wouldn't know who I was.
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