For your consideration…
Oh, people, people, people…
I was so hoping we were over this stuff by now.
On the left is the Harrisburg, Pa., Patriot-News from Oct. 7 of last year. On the right is Friday’s Journal Star of Lincoln, Neb.
Sigh…
Oh, people, people, people…
I was so hoping we were over this stuff by now.
On the left is the Harrisburg, Pa., Patriot-News from Oct. 7 of last year. On the right is Friday’s Journal Star of Lincoln, Neb.
Sigh…
February 20th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
As usual, the first one is the better one.
Having said that, we, as print designers, have far more important/scary things to worry about these days than someone stealing a design from halfway across the country. And it’s not really an epidemic.
February 21st, 2009 at 10:20 am
Bingo. There are far bigger things to be worried about these days than someone stealing your brilliant design idea.
Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.
February 21st, 2009 at 11:22 am
I respectfully disagree with both of you.
The excuse that “we have bigger things to worry about” is just that: And excuse. And a poor one at that.
Journalism is supposed to be a profession of principle. If we’re willing to relax our ethical standards when economic times are tough, then what’s the point of having ethical standards at all?
February 21st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I agree with Charles.
Those who work on presentation desks are journalists just as much as reporters. It would never been considered okay for two stories to share the same lead–why should it be okay for two pages to share the same visual presentation? Plagiarism is plagiarism. The Journal Star page is a clear rip off.
February 21st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Ethics aren’t something you toss out the window because of the circumstances in which you find yourself.
Mark me down on the side of Chuck and Kyle.
February 21st, 2009 at 5:26 pm
It’s fine to condemn theft like this and take sides, but expressing displeasure on the Internet isn’t going to accomplish anything unless someone takes action to back it up. Call the Journal Star’s presentation editor.
I’ve had it done to me and I didn’t much care for it. We can keep talking about how reprehensible it is, but nothing will come of it until the managers of these people are alerted to what they’re doing.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m having a hard time mustering a “how dare they” level of disgust on this. It’s their problem and their managers should be discussing it with them - or writing a visual eithic policy for their designers.
February 21st, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I almost sold my paper on a CP with the word DOW N (with the N being in RED and having an arrow head on it) at one point since October. And I have never seen the Patriot News A1. Would that have made me guilty of plagiarism? It just seemed like a natural way to present the scenario.
February 21st, 2009 at 6:06 pm
This is a big deal. It may not be a big deal to readers, but letting things like this slide only ruins our credibility. As designers, we are often looked at as the grammar-less, outside of ethics guys in the back. Allowing this sort of thing perpetuates that notion.
We are journalists and we should maintain the same level of ethics as our reporter brethren.
February 21st, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Okay, I probably should resist but I can’t. I sent this to Charles after our news design editor Tracy Cox, who did the Patriot-News page, spotted it and shared it in house. (I’m the paper’s exec. editor.)
1. I agree with Brandon. This is trivial compared to the industry’s huge challenges. I sent it to Charles not for some big public complaint but more as a “hey, you’ll be ‘amused’ by this.”
On the other hand, shoplifting is trivial compared to murder — that don’t make it right.
2. I agree with Mike, too. There are only so many ways to visually present the word “Dow” and a downward slide. There have been similar treatments before and after ours. But similar inspiration and plagiarism aren’t the same thing. Some Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard songs kind of sound alike but neither one plagiarized the other. These pages are identical.
3. You know what I actually object to? The copy doesn’t work! Look at what happened to the market on the Lincoln front. The words don’t fit the graphic at all. IT SHOULD SAY “UP… UP… UP… DOWN”!
Now rather than a ripoff, that would have been an homage — and a darn clever one at that :-)
February 21st, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Isn’t there at least a chance that the two different papers came up with this independently? Do we always have to assume that every idea is so brilliant that it has to be stolen?
What I wish we were talking about is the fact that as ad revenues continue to plummet, newspapers around the country and entire companies are talking about things that make something like this have the significance of a pebble in the ocean.
Imagine a centerpiece so good or generic that it could be run on 1As across the country. Imagine something like a nation/world page designed to run in two or six or 60 papers across the country. Now think about that concept for an entire section, or an entire newspaper.
It’s coming and it’s all in the name of efficiency, and by efficiency I mean they get to fire a lot of designers and copy editors and writers who used to do those things. While we’re sighing about Harrisburg and Lincoln doing a similar concept four months apart for the exact same type of story, those things are already happening or in the works. And the people who came up with those ideas will probably be rewarded for their ingenuity and their vision of the future of design. And make no mistake about it, the future of design is going to be done by as few people as possible in as cheap of way as possible.
So we should worry about ethics. No doubt about it. But when someone says, “‘we’ve got bigger things to worry about,” I think they’ve got a point.
February 21st, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Oh, how I wish Rob wasn’t so very correct.
February 21st, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Once again we see two almost exact treatments of the same story and once again we are left to wonder where to draw the line in the sand over design.
What about all those “homages” that so many designers pat themselves on the back over? How many of us have done a Hatch Show Print treatment on a music story? How about a boxing poster treatment for the big game or political showdown? What about pages influenced by Soviet propaganda posters? We’ve seen them all in the SND annuals, and they have become easy, trite treatments.
So where is that line?
I also agree wholeheartedly with Rob. My former paper — a Tribune property — will be using templated pages that are going to be going to many of Zell’s papers. They’re even changing their headline fonts so that there will be as little manipulation on their end as possible. Which means that some copy editors/designers will be losing their jobs in the coming weeks.
I think we should be focusing on how to make ourselves indispensable, rather than bickering over who stole what.
February 21st, 2009 at 10:50 pm
To clarify, my comment was not meant to weigh in on the copying issue.
I’ve done that many times in the past, this discussion has been had many times over. Maybe I should offer up my opinion or some indignation about it once again. It’s not that I disregard the importance of the copying or think it’s OK to ignore ethics in time of crisis.
But right or wrong, I guess I’m just too sad right now to get real fired up about it or focus on it. Sad about what’s happening to the industry, about what’s happening to people I care a lot about and what’s happening to my craft, visual journalism, that’s been much more than just a job to me for nearly 20 years.
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:07 am
Who cares?
I’m trying to, but I’m finding it really hard, not when I’m just happy that the designers at both papers still have jobs. Good for them.
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:37 am
This is obviously a rip off, but I’ve had ideas ripped off and always thought of it as a compliment. Just my opinion.
February 22nd, 2009 at 7:06 am
Rob, Paul, Bryan, Ernie — Here here!
I think you can think this kind of a non-issue for three reasons:
1. All of our friends are either being laid off or are terrified that they will be any day now.
2. We have talk this into the ground.
3. And - I am not downplaying this - has anyone actually talked to the designer to see if he was ‘inspired’ and maybe took it too far?
PS - Love the homage idea!
;-)
February 22nd, 2009 at 9:57 am
Sorry….I REALLY disagree with those who are saying it’s not important because *fill in the blank*.
Yes the industry is a mess. Yes people are losing their jobs. I honestly don’t see where those two things have any bearing on a discussion of ethics. As I said above, you don’t pitch your ethics because the economy is in the toilet and you’re afraid of losing your job. I’d argue that ethics are even MORE important in times like these.
Yes this issue has been discussed a lot, but if something is still going on, obviously more discussion is needed so people understand the issue and realize what’s wrong with such practices.
It is NOT a “non-issue.”
The only thing I would concede on this particular discussion is that nowhere has anyone noted having knowledge of whether the idea for the Journal Star’s Dow package did indeed come from having seen the piece in The Patriot-News.
If the consensus is that to make yourself indispensable means you forget about ethics then I’m glad I’m not in the newspaper business any more. Throw another log on that fire.
Many of those who’ve left comments here I consider great friends, so I just wanted to add that I make the above statements with the utmost respect. Tone in emails or blog comments can be so hard to judge, and while I feel passionately about the subject, I didn’t want anyone to be confused as to my manner in expressing these thoughts.
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Listen, I don’t disagree. I guess just don’t really see it as an either-or issue.
I’m glad Charles posted this, I read it with interest, I’d be shocked if it wasn’t a copy due to the level of exact detail and that’s definitely not a good thing.
Yes, it’s an problem that’s worthy of discussion and it’s good to continue raising awareness if people are still doing it.
But for me personally, I was infinitely MORE interested and MORE worried about issues that Rob and Bryan mentioned. I think there’s MORE urgency to the fact that companies are suddenly viewing copy editing and design as a “manufacturing” role that can be tossed aside in order to save money. And I suspect by the end of the year a lot of people who are not so worried about it now, will be.
This is probably a terrible analogy, but that’s never stopped me before, so here goes. It’s like this:
I care about the environment, it’s know a very important issue. I recycle my bottles, paper and cardboard. I encourage other people to recycle. I can even get preachy about it sometimes.
Now, if there’s a huge meteor about to crash down right on top of my house and turn my neighborhood into a giant crater, I’m not going to feel the same level of urgency about the one guy on the block who still refuses to recycle his bottles.
It doesn’t make recycling any less important, I’m just going to have trouble focusing on it or investing a lot of emotion in it when certain destruction is about to crash down on my way of life.
If someone else feels strongly enough about recycling to go preach to that one guy while the meteor is hurtling toward us, more power to you. I’m not as good at compartmentalizing that way.
Also, what John said about respect, same here.
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Boy this is a hot topic! For good reason.
I can’t imagine it being a coincidence, sicne everthing about it is exactly the same. At first I thought it was a “package” that was shared by two different papers in the same company.
The issue that bothers me the most is that it a “cute” way to present a very serious story. I suppose it at least does not have a “dejected trader” under the fever line. I did that in Oct. 1997, and have not had the stomach to do it since.
Copying completely is wrong. I can see being inspired by it and doing something that is similar but fits the current situation. But direct copying is lazy and does not make us visual people look valuable to those editors that have layoffs on their mind. In these trying times it is even more important to take visuals to a higher level, since os much of the rest of the paper is having to be shortcut.
Centerpieces are not “cut and paste-able” from time and place.
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Those that say this isn’t a big issue because the industry is in shambles: Would you say the same thing about a plagiarized story that doesn’t credit the original author?
Just because we are in trouble doesn’t mean our ethics should go out the window.
That’s not to say this is a huge issue either, but does it really take so much effort to not completely rip each other off? Don’t we, as designers, pride ourselves on presenting the news in a unique and engaging fashion?
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
John, I guess what I’m saying is less that it’s not a problem, but more that there’s a time and place for this.
The quality of our work is important, and it can’t decline right now in difficult times, but it’s just not we should be focusing on. As an industry, as human beings. It takes time away from working on what our real job is right now: Not front page treatments, but keeping this industry alive. Let’s figure out how we can do that so that we can have these heated arguments about plagiarism in three or four years.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Ernie pretty well summed up what I was trying to say.
He was just much better at it.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:10 am
While I don’t agree with “stealing,” “borrowing” or “paying homage,” One question that hasn’t been outright asked was: “Is this for the reader?”
Isn’t that why we’re doing this, anyway?
That being said, I agree with David at the Patriot-News: Did the latter design serve the reader? Not really — it didn’t really illustrate the story, and that’s a disservice to them and to the craft. It’s just stealing, sorry.
Let’s say the slammer didn’t say “down, down, down” and it actually was written to give the DOW|N logotype a purpose, then I won’t have my hackles raised. But I digress…
Look, we all have A LOT of problems these days, but forums like this are great to discuss, analyze and help those new to the industry realize what TO and NOT TO do. Heck, there are some who have been at this for years who don’t understand right from wrong. Given the climate, hand-wringing seems a bit much, but it’s encouraging to see impassioned reason and discussion.
At any rate, it’s up to the managers to cultivate an environment of honest and effective visual journalism.
And now I’ll go back to organizing my NPD stash.