5 ms·

All modern media companies today have been built by using these kinds of shady "growth hacks." Doesn't anybody see the irony of Buzzfeed calling out a fellow m

All modern media companies today have been built by using these kinds of shady "growth hacks." Doesn't anybody see the irony of Buzzfeed calling out a fellow media company for using such tactics? Buzzfeed's entire growth strategy for years was copy-pasting content from trending reddit threads and turning them into "listicles" with clickbait headlines, then feeding them into Facebook. Was that not also plagiarism?

dheera 5y ago
Exactly, I'm not actually surprised, don't most news media just copy articles from each other? Every time I post a guest blog to a news site it appears on 10 other news sites within a day.
- aalam 5y ago
  There's a term for that in journalism: "matching" a story. This traditionally involves legwork, such as contacting the same sources quoted in the first article to verify that facts are true. This legwork is usually done by traditionally respected publications (i.e. not just copying and pasting). Other outlets and blogs with different goals do blatantly copy and paste, which produces articles less valuable than those traditionally matched. Matching—versus copying and pasting—is important because it avoids the spread of false reports. From "The Elements of Journalism" by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel: "Originality is a bulwark of better journalism, deeper understanding, and more accurate reporting. […] In the era before curation and aggregation, the tradition of “matching” stories was rooted in the same idea. Rather than publishing another news outlet’s scoop, journalists tended to require one of their reporters to call a source to confirm it first. This tradition of matching was a way for news organizations to avoid having to credit their rivals, which in this earlier era was considered an embarrassing admission of being scooped. Yet the tradition of matching had another more important and salutary effect. Stories that couldn’t be independently confirmed would not be repeated." A norm in the journalism industry is to credit the first publication who reported an investigative scoop, naming the outlet (e.g. this New York Times article [0] cites information reported by less-read Punchbowl News). [0] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/21/us/joe-biden https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/21/us/joe-biden
  - kalium-xyz 5y ago
    Ive not ever seen the positive effects of this on internet journalism rather than echoing with less details and obfuscating actual information.
    - aalam 5y ago
      There can be positive effects of matching a story, but it depends on the journalists and the publication. Let's say The Wall Street Journal publishes a major investigative scoop, but you only pay for a Washington Post subscription. The Washington Post then matches the story to give readers access to the information, maybe with additional information or a unique angle, and sends a push notification to readers with the app. The WaPo article cites, and likely links, the WSJ if readers want to read the original report, and its readers become aware of the news. That is the high-quality, professional version of matching. The low-quality, unprofessional version is echoing a story for clicks, but you're less likely to run into this if you are a newspaper subscriber who reads reports from publication apps (or alternatively, a reader who curates high-quality sources of reporting without paywalls).
      - kalium-xyz 5y ago
        I only run into matching while trying to find more information on a topic only to conclude that all the sources I find are just matching the initial article. Its an unfortunate side effect of the top down view search engines allow us I guess. Unfortunate cause its very frustrating and can waste up to an hour or so of your day if there are a few dozen articles on a subject. I should add that I dont follow any news sites accept aggregators. I can imagine that I would have issues with a local newspaper which I trust not reporting to me that the minister president was shot even though they could not possible have the scoop.
- kalium-xyz 5y ago
  Sure seems so. When I followed the entire stallman controversy everyone just copied the first article sometimes citing it as a source of the controversial information to deter potential liability's but never to the credit Ir good of said source. Similarly on any other niche enough or single sourced event you see this behavior as if repeating some joke said by another person.
danso 5y ago
Here's an example of what you're talking about: The original r/AskReddit thread ("What feels illegal, but isn't?"): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aszfh3/what_feels_illegal_but_isnt/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aszfh3/what_feel... The Buzzfeed repurposing of that thread ("19 Things That FEEL Illegal Even Though They Definitely Aren't"): https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephenlaconte/if-you-have-a-guilty-conscience https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephenlaconte/if-you-have-a-guilty... And a r/mildlyinfuriating thread about Buzzfeed's repurposing ("Buzzfeed blatantly copying their articles from AskReddit threads"): https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/axb6cw/buzzfeed_blatantly_copying_their_articles_from/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/axb6cw/b... As the r/mildlyinfuriating discussion points out, the Buzzfeed article is both prefaced with the origin — i.e. "This week, a Reddit thread asked users that very question..." — and a link to that source. And each item (i.e. Reddit comment) is attributed to the Reddit user (e.g. "Walking out of the store without buying anything." —lassissal), and a link back to the user comment. Plagiarism is the act of claiming authorship for someone else's content. Buzzfeed's profit-by-curation may be distasteful, but it's not plagiarism. In any case, I think the average person understands that Buzzfeed is an aggregator, with a mission to get clicks and to entertain. Stealing content is wrong no matter what, but it isn't a direct contradiction of Buzzfeed's purported core purpose. Snopes' purported core purpose is to "have the real facts", and that purpose is directly undermined by lying about others' work being your own.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > Plagiarism is the act of claiming authorship for someone else's content. Buzzfeed's profit-by-curation may be distasteful, but it's not plagiarism. If I were to publish an article that is a word for word copy of another article, with proper attribution, would I not be accused of plagiarism?
  - akiselev 5y ago
    You might be accused of a copyright violation, but not plagiarism.
  - 6AA4FD 5y ago
lilyball 5y ago
Buzzfeed cites its sources for its listicles. That’s the exact opposite of plagiarism.
- pembrook 5y ago
  The exact opposite of plagiarism is original authorship. Citing where you took the words from doesn't make you the author of those words. I wouldn't even have a problem if Buzzfeed had just slightly rewrote the content from reddit. Because that would involve some effort. I wouldn't even care about attribution in that case. But doing a full copy-paste, hitting publish and then collecting money for it is just disgusting.
AceJohnny2 5y ago
BuzzfeedNews != Buzzfeed. BuzzfeedNews is legitimate journalism, financed with the money from the clickbaity Buzzfeed. But I agree the co-branding has its downsides.
jccalhoun 5y ago
Agreed. On a near daily basis I run across articles that are just summaries of things from other places. Sometimes it is a game of telephone where one site summarizes a second site that has summarized a third site. But let's not kid ourselves that this is only online. It happens in all news media. One person breaks a story then all the other news outlets just repeat the original story sometimes with their own followup quotes.
sdljfjafsd 5y ago
Buzzfeed is a weird Jekyll & Hyde business. They have two businesses i) the typical buzzfeed junk - Buzzfeed - This group follows no journalism practices, steals content from other sites, doesn't attribute, writes click bait articles, rebrands ads as articles, etc. ii) the investigate journalism department - Buzzfeed News - this team has top notch investigative journalism. They actually do tons of original research, interview and cite sources, break big stories (many of the Uber scandals were found through their original research). Basically this group follows journalism standards and actually is at the top tier of investigative journalism. The irony is that i) and ii) are run under the same brand and the only reason why Buzzfeed can fund investigate journalism ii) is due to the b.s. content they serve from i). it's a weird scenario where the org is both the worst and best of journalism. Bu at least they have found a sustainable, albeit sleazy, way of funding investigative journalism.
- jawns 5y ago
  Lots of other organizations who operate this way establish two separate brands so that the sleazy one doesn't sully the other. I'm kind of surprised that Buzzfeed News hasn't ditched the "Buzzfeed" name, even if it's still run by the parent company.

dheera 5y ago

Exactly, I'm not actually surprised, don't most news media just copy articles from each other? Every time I post a guest blog to a news site it appears on 10 other news sites within a day.

aalam 5y ago
There's a term for that in journalism: "matching" a story. This traditionally involves legwork, such as contacting the same sources quoted in the first article to verify that facts are true. This legwork is usually done by traditionally respected publications (i.e. not just copying and pasting). Other outlets and blogs with different goals do blatantly copy and paste, which produces articles less valuable than those traditionally matched. Matching—versus copying and pasting—is important because it avoids the spread of false reports. From "The Elements of Journalism" by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel: "Originality is a bulwark of better journalism, deeper understanding, and more accurate reporting. […] In the era before curation and aggregation, the tradition of “matching” stories was rooted in the same idea. Rather than publishing another news outlet’s scoop, journalists tended to require one of their reporters to call a source to confirm it first. This tradition of matching was a way for news organizations to avoid having to credit their rivals, which in this earlier era was considered an embarrassing admission of being scooped. Yet the tradition of matching had another more important and salutary effect. Stories that couldn’t be independently confirmed would not be repeated." A norm in the journalism industry is to credit the first publication who reported an investigative scoop, naming the outlet (e.g. this New York Times article [0] cites information reported by less-read Punchbowl News). [0] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/21/us/joe-biden https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/21/us/joe-biden
- kalium-xyz 5y ago
  Ive not ever seen the positive effects of this on internet journalism rather than echoing with less details and obfuscating actual information.
  - aalam 5y ago
    There can be positive effects of matching a story, but it depends on the journalists and the publication. Let's say The Wall Street Journal publishes a major investigative scoop, but you only pay for a Washington Post subscription. The Washington Post then matches the story to give readers access to the information, maybe with additional information or a unique angle, and sends a push notification to readers with the app. The WaPo article cites, and likely links, the WSJ if readers want to read the original report, and its readers become aware of the news. That is the high-quality, professional version of matching. The low-quality, unprofessional version is echoing a story for clicks, but you're less likely to run into this if you are a newspaper subscriber who reads reports from publication apps (or alternatively, a reader who curates high-quality sources of reporting without paywalls).
    - kalium-xyz 5y ago
      I only run into matching while trying to find more information on a topic only to conclude that all the sources I find are just matching the initial article. Its an unfortunate side effect of the top down view search engines allow us I guess. Unfortunate cause its very frustrating and can waste up to an hour or so of your day if there are a few dozen articles on a subject. I should add that I dont follow any news sites accept aggregators. I can imagine that I would have issues with a local newspaper which I trust not reporting to me that the minister president was shot even though they could not possible have the scoop.
kalium-xyz 5y ago
Sure seems so. When I followed the entire stallman controversy everyone just copied the first article sometimes citing it as a source of the controversial information to deter potential liability's but never to the credit Ir good of said source. Similarly on any other niche enough or single sourced event you see this behavior as if repeating some joke said by another person.

danso 5y ago

Here's an example of what you're talking about: The original r/AskReddit thread ("What feels illegal, but isn't?"): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aszfh3/what_feels_illegal_but_isnt/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aszfh3/what_feel... The Buzzfeed repurposing of that thread ("19 Things That FEEL Illegal Even Though They Definitely Aren't"): https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephenlaconte/if-you-have-a-guilty-conscience https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephenlaconte/if-you-have-a-guilty... And a r/mildlyinfuriating thread about Buzzfeed's repurposing ("Buzzfeed blatantly copying their articles from AskReddit threads"): https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/axb6cw/buzzfeed_blatantly_copying_their_articles_from/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/axb6cw/b... As the r/mildlyinfuriating discussion points out, the Buzzfeed article is both prefaced with the origin — i.e. "This week, a Reddit thread asked users that very question..." — and a link to that source. And each item (i.e. Reddit comment) is attributed to the Reddit user (e.g. "Walking out of the store without buying anything." —lassissal), and a link back to the user comment. Plagiarism is the act of claiming authorship for someone else's content. Buzzfeed's profit-by-curation may be distasteful, but it's not plagiarism. In any case, I think the average person understands that Buzzfeed is an aggregator, with a mission to get clicks and to entertain. Stealing content is wrong no matter what, but it isn't a direct contradiction of Buzzfeed's purported core purpose. Snopes' purported core purpose is to "have the real facts", and that purpose is directly undermined by lying about others' work being your own.

tsimionescu 5y ago
> Plagiarism is the act of claiming authorship for someone else's content. Buzzfeed's profit-by-curation may be distasteful, but it's not plagiarism. If I were to publish an article that is a word for word copy of another article, with proper attribution, would I not be accused of plagiarism?
- akiselev 5y ago
  You might be accused of a copyright violation, but not plagiarism.
- 6AA4FD 5y ago

lilyball 5y ago

Buzzfeed cites its sources for its listicles. That’s the exact opposite of plagiarism.

pembrook 5y ago
The exact opposite of plagiarism is original authorship. Citing where you took the words from doesn't make you the author of those words. I wouldn't even have a problem if Buzzfeed had just slightly rewrote the content from reddit. Because that would involve some effort. I wouldn't even care about attribution in that case. But doing a full copy-paste, hitting publish and then collecting money for it is just disgusting.

AceJohnny2 5y ago

BuzzfeedNews != Buzzfeed. BuzzfeedNews is legitimate journalism, financed with the money from the clickbaity Buzzfeed. But I agree the co-branding has its downsides.

jccalhoun 5y ago

Agreed. On a near daily basis I run across articles that are just summaries of things from other places. Sometimes it is a game of telephone where one site summarizes a second site that has summarized a third site. But let's not kid ourselves that this is only online. It happens in all news media. One person breaks a story then all the other news outlets just repeat the original story sometimes with their own followup quotes.

sdljfjafsd 5y ago

Buzzfeed is a weird Jekyll & Hyde business. They have two businesses i) the typical buzzfeed junk - Buzzfeed - This group follows no journalism practices, steals content from other sites, doesn't attribute, writes click bait articles, rebrands ads as articles, etc. ii) the investigate journalism department - Buzzfeed News - this team has top notch investigative journalism. They actually do tons of original research, interview and cite sources, break big stories (many of the Uber scandals were found through their original research). Basically this group follows journalism standards and actually is at the top tier of investigative journalism. The irony is that i) and ii) are run under the same brand and the only reason why Buzzfeed can fund investigate journalism ii) is due to the b.s. content they serve from i). it's a weird scenario where the org is both the worst and best of journalism. Bu at least they have found a sustainable, albeit sleazy, way of funding investigative journalism.

jawns 5y ago
Lots of other organizations who operate this way establish two separate brands so that the sleazy one doesn't sully the other. I'm kind of surprised that Buzzfeed News hasn't ditched the "Buzzfeed" name, even if it's still run by the parent company.