Charles Apple

I found myself jarred today by the revelation — which, like you, I found via Poynter’s Jim Romenesko — that the online operations of Time magazine and Politico had posted Michael Hastings‘ landmark Rolling Stone article on Gen. Stanley McChrystal last week.

Posted the entire article. The whole thing. In its entirety.

For years, I’ve joked with my wife that I ought to start a new tradition here at the blog: I should give out a Douchebag of the Week award. It’s behavior like this — by Time and by Politico — that pushes me toward doing that.

David Carr wrote in his Sunday piece in the New York Times that the purloined material was posted in the form of a PDF — admittedly, not the easiest way to read a magazine article. And that Rolling Stone had not yet posted it on its own site. But neither of those facts makes it right:

Both companies said that a frenzy involving a significant national issue was under way and that because Rolling Stone itself did not post the article on its site, they took matters into their own hands. Each said that when Rolling Stone protested, it was taken down, and that when the magazine put up the piece at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, their sites linked to that instead.

…Several commentators suggested that Rolling Stone brought this on itself by not immediately publishing the McChrystal article on its own site (the magazine had planned to publish online but on its own schedule).

“That’s like saying, ‘She had it coming,’ ” Eric Bates, executive editor of Rolling Stone, said in an interview on Thursday.

Indeed, Carr goes on to quote Politico founder and executive editor Jim VandeHei as saying…

…the imperatives of the news cycle superseded questions of custody. “Our reporters got the article from sources with no restrictions,” he wrote.

To which I say: Bullshit.

The latest issue of Rolling Stone, containing the McChrystal
article. I don’t think that’s McChrystal on the cover, though.
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There are time-tested rules of thumb for quoting, supposedly. For example, quote no more than three paragraphs, some say. Attribute everything. And always provide a direct link.

Longtime readers of the blog here know that while I love generating my own content — and I do, as often as I can — I also aggregate. Sometimes, I’ll add my own commentary (as I’m doing right now). More often, I don’t.

Sometimes, I’ll quote a little more than three grafs. Sometimes, it’s less. I usually try to include two links to the source material — one in the attribution and another at the bottom of the post.

And if I find myself citing a source two or three times over the course of a few weeks, I’m inclined to add them to my blogroll — which, as you can see there on the right side of this page, is pretty lengthy already.

I used to cite Jim Romenesko’s wonderful blog a lot more often than I do these days. That’s because as my use of Twitter and Facebook has increased — and as my own network of newsmakers and tipsters has enlarged — I often find myself posting on topics Romenesko covers, via routes other than following his links.

Make no mistake, though. He’s still the best media blogger on the planet.

All this is on my mind today because just recently, I’ve had media journalists ask me how I’m affiliated with the Newseum. Because I link to them so often and because my frequent roundup mini-critiques of the day’s front pages use images from the Newseum.

The answer, of course, is that I’m not affiliated at all with the Newseum. I’ve never even visited the brick-and-mortar Newseum museum that opened in downtown D.C. a couple of years ago (although it’s high on my to-do list). I use JPGs from the Newseum nearly every day and I try to link to them once or twice nearly every time I do. I’m a big fan of what they do up there and I think visual journalists all over the world owe them an enormous thanks for this service they provide.

But honestly, the pages at the Newseum are, in turn, freely donated by newspapers. If there was a copyright issue, let’s say, the issue would be on the part of the individual newspapers and publishers — not with the Newseum itself.

Because I don’t say it enough: Thanks, Newseum, for all that you do.

And thanks, David Carr of the New York Times, for bringing this story to our attention.

Politico? And Time magazine? Thanks to you, too. Thanks for… well, thanks for being such incredible hypocrites. Without behavior like yours, journalists like me would have nothing to blog about on a Monday.

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Find David Carr’s Sunday piece here. Find Romenesko here. Find the Newseum here.

Nor is he real damn fond of Outside magazine at the moment.

As far as we can reconstruct, here’s what happened…

1. Outside prepares a cover story on champion cyclist Lance Armstrong. They shoot him for the cover wearing a plain blue T-shirt.

2. At some point, the editors have a cute saying Photoshopped onto the shirt:

Amusing, perhaps. But not to Lance.

3. Lance tweets:

4. The whole thing goes viral — most notably at the Huffington Post.

5. Outside responds with a little tag beneath the cover image on its web site:

Funny stuff. And not to excuse this — because I, too, hate bullshit with Photoshop when it’s not obviously a photoillustration…

But come on, bicycle dude. This stuff is done all the time in magazines. That doesn’t make it right. But it is pretty common.

(Read about that Washingtonian example here.)

(Read about that example from Newsweek here.)

(Read about that one — and several more like it — here.)

My advice, Lance: Next time, opt to give your exclusive interview to a newspaper.

Thanks to Michael King of the Green Bay Press-Gazette for the tip.

Here it is. What do you think:

I think it’s pretty clear this is Photoshopped. The big clue: The dog is in focus but the house in the background is out of focus. That tells us something about the shooter’s depth-of-field.

But then look at the jets. They’re nice and crisp.

What kind of lens would make the dog — maybe three feet away — and the jets — maybe a mile away — sharp but leave the house — perhaps 100 feet away — blurry? No kind that I know of.

Yet, this picture ran in National Geographic’s February 2010 issue as a reader-submitted picture.

The magazine published, in a recent edition:

[Reader William] Lascelles submitted a nicely composed picture showing a scruffy dog backed by jets inscribing trails in a blue sky. After he learned that it had been chosen for the magazine, Lascelles told our writer that frame was “a lucky shot.” He confirmed that statement for our researcher. When Senior Photo Editor Susan Welchman asked him, prior to publication, to verify the image with the next photo in his shooting sequence, Lascelles sent her another picture of the dog—head turned this time—with the same jets above.

National Geographic ran the picture on its “Your shot” page. Readers wrote to insist this has been manipulated. The photographer finally admitted it.

Find the retraction and explanation here.

The fabulous Craig Silverman blogged this last week over at Regret the Error.

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UPDATE:

An exclusive for the blog: Here’s the original photo before it was altered: