22 comments

• 

  Robin Hamman

  2 years ago

  It's not just students who do this - I once had a post taken almost verbatim (although there was a link) by the Washington Post.
  
  It was on a page that updates to display only the most current entry so I can't see it there now but I remember feeling a little bit puzzled, if not troubled, when it happened.
  
  A few lines or paragraphs quoted along with a link would have been the appropriate way to do it.
  reply
• 

  Francois Nel

  2 years ago

  Your post is a reminder that, as with any community, the education and socialisation of members and would-be members is likely to be most succesful when it's considered a collective responsibility. Thanks for doing your bit to help us here at UCLan tackle the challenge of educating tomorrow's journalists. I've little doubt that this post - and the important points you raise - will be much-discussed when my colleagues and the students return from the Spring break.
  reply
• 

  Andy

  2 years ago

  As the person who put the blogs at ukjournalism in place, this kind of thing fills me with dread. You know you are going to have one of those days when this is the first thing that comes across your desk.
  
  Let me know the name of the blog Martin, and I will remove the post ASAP.
  
  As Robin points out, it isn’t just students who do this kind of thing. The issue of copying of work is a perennial problem. The positive the web brings is that it’s traceable, findable and ultimately easily removed. Journalists (training or otherwise) should know better, but it seems that in all parts of the industry they don’t That doesn’t excuse the behaviour of the student though and I appreciate your frustration.
  
  To suggest that we give individual blogs and no guidance is also unfair. We set a great deal of store in professional practice in the department and students do know better. So whilst I accept that it’s the responsibility of j-schools to educate students in this stuff you can never educate against individual action. What we can do is seek to solve the problem and educate the individual to the error they made. As Francois says, it all helps go to educating the community.
  
  For educators, it’s an increasingly difficult balancing act – the ability to experience this stuff Vs. the reality of the mistakes they make. The ongoing debate about teaching students real world skills, giving them the experience of all this new technology just sets that in an often difficult context.
  reply
• 

  Martin

  2 years ago

  Andy,
  
  Sorry about causing you some dread, that wasn't my intention.
  
  I'd rather not name the student, though. I don't want to cause any embarrassment or other problems for anyone.
  
  I also rather you didn't take anything down, because the post actually makes some useful points and shows that the student in question is thinking about the implications of the issue raised in the article for their future career.
  reply
• 

  Martin

  2 years ago

  My Press Gazette colleague Patrick Smith has just made a very important point: This has only happened because UCLAN is sticking its neck out by teaching blogging as part of its journalism curriculum.
  
  There is no textbook that will teach students any of this, and people like Andy Dickinson are to be commended for being on the cutting edge of journalism education.
  
  UCLAN should be commended for its vision in this area, and I hope nobody suggests that the additional risks such innovation brings with it should be a reason to be more conservative with student blogs.
  reply
• 

  Graham

  2 years ago

  "That encounter showed that some students fail to distinguish between blogs published in a professional capacity and the sort of semi-private stuff they do everyday on MySpace"
  
  And this and Bobbie's experience is an object lesson for lecturers and students alike. There are two points here as you allude to in the comments Martin.
  
  Firstly, there is no handbook for teaching blogging to journalism students. The only way to learn, as with journalism really, is to do. Situations like this are bound to occur. The fact that more experienced people like yourself are pointing out issues for the students can only be a good thing all round especially if incorporated and discussed back in the seminar room.
  
  Apart from a few notable exceptions I would guess that the majority of journalism lecturers in the UK probably don't know much about blogs and how the whole social net thing meshes together and what that means for publishing. This will obviously have an impact on the quality of teaching.
  
  This was most evidently the case with the Emerson/Johnson brouhaha. BTW - Did the Emerson lecturer ever respond to that?
  reply
• 

  Andy

  2 years ago

  Shucks, now I'm blushing.
  
  Sometimes the "cutting edge of journalism education" feels more like the seat of your pants.
  
  Giving students the chance to experience the web as a proffesional arena is a gamble, especially when you see how some of them behave in that myspace enironment.
  
  But Graham (and Ferancois) is spot on. The ability to have an inclusive - student and pro - experience like this vital and what makes the web so exciting.
  
  I think we can all feel a lot more positive about the way we develop if this how we go about developing.
  reply
• 

  Andy

  2 years ago

  But less positive about my use of english
  
  "...way we develop if this how we go about developing"
  
  What am I talking about
  reply
• 

  Ian Delaney

  2 years ago

  Excellent work from Andy, above.
  
  Moderation (on social sites) and Subbing (for all the rest of us) remain in desperate need.
  reply
• 

  Ian Baker

  2 years ago

  As a student of UCLan and involved in the Student Union's Journalism Department I feel disappointed for the need to bring this issue into the public sphere. The tone of this posting is rather insulting to both students and lecturers at UCLan. We do not all live in a Myspace world, indeed some of us are already professionals or semi-professionals.
  
  Surely a better way of dealing with this isolated incident would have been to have contacted the university directly, if you were unable to identify the author? It doesn't take much to have drafted an email or to have used the old fashioned method of picking up a telephone.
  
  I note the author has already apologised to you directly. I hope their confidence has not been affected by a matter which could quite easily have been dealt with in a less public manner.
  
  Ian Baker
  Vice-chairman
  UCLan Journalism Society
  www.uclanjoso.co.uk
  reply
• 

  Martin

  2 years ago

  Ian,
  
  Have you actually read my post?
  
  I made it clear in my clarification that I do not wish to suggest that everyone at UCLAN is responsible for this, even though the original tone of the post might have suggested that. I was always careful to stress that I am complaining about some specific students. I also mentioned one UCLAN student blogger whose work I really like. There are many other great student-journalists who blog.
  
  However, as discussed in the post, this is not an isolated incident. There have been other cases of journalism students displaying poor blogging and professional practice at other universities. Another working journalist expressed similar experiences. There is clearly a broader issue to be discussed here.
  
  I must stress, as I have elsewhere, that I do not think this was a case of deliberate plagiarism. As Robin Hamman notes above, far more more serious cases have occurred at blogs run by paid professionals.
  
  Second, contrary to your assertion, the author of the post in question has not been in touch with me to apologise. The post by Monkey is not the one to which I was referring.
  
  Third, as I explained in the post, I would have responded less publicly if that option had been available. The whole point of this post (and indeed your and university lectuers' criticism of it) is that bloggers should be personally responsible for their actions. The university has done nothing wrong, and as I explained in my clarification, is actually to be commended for providing you with an excellent learning experience. Why should I involve them?
  
  I am astonished by your call for a "less public" solution. The whole point of the way blogging is changing journalism is that journalists need to understand that their readers, using blogs, will hold them to account in a much more public manner than was previously possible. If you are going to blog publically, you need to be ready to accept public criticism.
  
  As it happens, I e-mailed my post to a lecturer at the university immediatly after posting it in order to give an opportunity to reply.
  reply
• 

  Graham

  2 years ago

  Very interesting follow up here.
  
  "If you are going to blog publically, you need to be ready to accept public criticism."
  
  This is the problem. I think all journalists and definitely wannabes have to grasp this as a fundamental given regardless of where they publish.
  
  However, in the wider blogosphere - even with some very experienced and popular bloggers - the same problem occurs. See this discussion. Find the comments by the very popular blogger Elise,
  
  http://www.noodlepie.com/2007/02/what_are_the_w...
  
  For many bloggers, there is a fundamental clash of what is and is not allowed to be criticised. The old school, pre-blog approach, which I hold to, is if it's in the pulic domain, it's fair game. The thing is the public domain is so much bigger now by a factor of a gazillion and so many people are putting themselves into it possibly without really thinking of the possible consequences. Journalism students, more than any group I can think of, must understand this.
  
  One slightly tangential thought here. One news story that is just begging to happen - but give it another 5 or 10 years or so -
  
  "Teen sues parents over baby blog"
  
  I wonder how many kids will resent their parents blogging their lives for them?
  reply
• 

  Nigel Barlow

  2 years ago

  Martin,
  
  I think that your comments are extremely valid on this subject.
  Surely any journalist or budding journalist should sign up to the unwritten code that acknowledges any sources of material whether this is in a blog or printed material.
  As a student at UCLAN,I can assure you that best practice is drummed into us all the timeand I totally take on what Andy Dickinson is saying in his comments.This,I am sure was an isolated incident as far as UCLAN is concerned but there is a wider issue to be addressed in the blogosphere.Quite how we do that I am unsure
  reply
• 

  Ed Walker

  2 years ago

  I'm pretty sure whoever committed the terrible act will be forced to read these comments and reflect on what they did.
  
  As a student at UCLan myself, one of the best bits we've done this year was setting up a blog for the third year online journalists. www.ukjournalism.co.uk/baonline - it's been a great resource and way to reflect on our course.
  
  It's a shame that someone from UCLan hasn't quite grasped the blogging ethic, but they are only a first/second year and believe me you don't know much in the third year compared with the real world, let alone in the first or second year.
  
  I'm sure they will learn from their mistake.
  reply
• 

  Louise Steggals

  2 years ago

  Oi Ed. "Only a first/second year?"
  
  I doubt it was intended to sound as patronising as it does but I like to think that some of us baby journalists do have our heads screwed on (as has been indicated by many of the other comments)
  
  Plus given how much the subject of plagarism gets hammered home every time we get an assignment is it too much to expect just a teeny-tiny spark of common sense?
  
  Still, it certainly is a learning curve for all involved and Martin has made some good points which he may have noticed have been implemented, such as the full identification and ability to email blog authors on the ukjournalism site.
  
  And even though our law exams finish at the end of May, I don't think I shall be putting my copy of McNae away just yet.
  reply
• 

  Ed Walker

  2 years ago

  Bloody McNae... it becomes the bane of your life. We found a mistake in it the other day.
  
  It's good to see the blogs now have an identification on them so that it can be seen who is writing what, and a link to the author's email address.
  reply
• 

  Martin

  2 years ago

  I notice that the blogger who irked me initially has now amended that post. Thanks.
  reply
• 

  mark duckworth

  2 years ago

  This seems like an honest mistake and it seems that it has been delt with accordingly,hopefully the student still has the confidence to keep wrting and long live UCLAN
  reply
• 

  Martin

  2 years ago

  Mark,
  
  I am in complete agreement with your comment. It was an honest, (if unacceptable) mistake, but it was dealt with brilliantly.
  
  I seriously hope I haven't put anyone off blogging, and that the university doesn't restrict its students' blogging as a result.
  reply
• 

  Robert Hopkins

  10 months ago

  Do you know what, I just found this through Google and felt compelled to respond. What an absolutely abysmal attitude you're showing towards blogging, Martin. I didn't realise that professional tuition was required before one could be "unleashed" on the blogosphere. Your post isn't only patronising, it's a public humiliation not only for the poor student - who simply didn't know any better - and for the J-School.
  
  I personally would much rather read the opinions of a more carefree blogger than one bound by protocol and formal tuition. Get a grip.
  reply
• 

  Martin Stabe

  10 months ago

  Robert, Sorry you feel that way.
  
  As I said in the post, if this were any ordinary "amateur" blogger, none of this would have been be an issue.
  
  In fact, I strongly oppose the idea that blogging requires some sort of "credential". The point was that the blog in question was by a journalism student - a media professional in training. And a media professional in training must understand that the same standards of professional conduct - attribution, not infringing copyright and so on - apply on their blogs as in any other published medium.
  
  I don't think it is patronising to apply the same standards to a student journalist as you would to a graduate "professional". Quite the contrary: I think it would be more patronising to take the attitude that someone is "just a student" or "just a blogger".
  
  I was also careful not to "humiliate" anybody. Nobody is mentioned by name. In fact, I still don't know the name of the student in question, nor do I care. However, I know that my criticisms were taken on board by all the students on the course. I know, because some of them e-mailed me to discuss the issue. You'll see in the comments above that some lecturers on the course, were also very positive about my approach.
  reply
• 

  Robert Hopkins

  9 months ago

  Martin, I take your point and I apologise if I came across as aggressive in my original reply. It was a tough day!
  
  Perhaps you're right and this has taught the students in question a valuable lesson. At the very least it's a hot talking point, and that being the case I'm glad you highlighted the issue.
  reply