One of the great things about publishing news online is that it spreads. People share it on social media, then various news sites pick it up, then newspapers, then maybe the radio.
And then thousands and thousands of people are talking about what you thought was important enough to write about – talking about your work. You’re helping to set the news agenda.
One of the bad things about publishing news online is that sometimes other sites just steal your stuff and pass it off as theirs, without giving you any credit, much less paying.
Imagine you are a farmer. You are growing carrots. You plant them and raise them and harvest them. It takes time and money and effort.
You bring them to the farmer’s market in Dublin, and you put them out in your stall. All around you, there are other long-haired hippies selling organic turmeric and free-range cabbages.
Along comes some guy with a degree in business, in a sharp suit, sneering at you. He has his personal assistant grab your carrots, and they walk off. When you protest, he gives you the finger.
This guy sells your carrots from his supermarket down in the road, and keeps all the profits. He basks in the compliments from his customers about what lovely carrots they are.
Like growing carrots, publishing original journalism takes time and costs money. News organizations pay journalists to come up with ideas, do research, interview people, write articles and take photos.
Then they publish it on their websites. And then there are the people in sharp suits who come along and take the articles and put them up in their own supermarket-websites.
There are websites out there, I am sure, that get young people with few other ways to get experience in journalism to churn out multiple articles a day for little or no pay, many of which involve no idea-generation, research or interviewing.
These writers are probably told to just look at NewsWhip to see what stories are hot at the moment, skim through them, and rewrite them a bit.
Sites like this don’t give credit or payment to the journalists who did the harder work of coming up with the idea, researching it, interviewing people and writing the original article, or to the news organizations that paid them to do so.
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At Dublin Inquirer we’ve had a lot of really good experiences with our colleagues in the media, who have treated us well, and given back to us when they were spreading, amplifying, or building on our work.
Some have given us credit in their articles and/or linked to our articles (The Journal, Newstalk, RTÉ and Broadsheet, to name a few). The Sun went even further. They liked an article we did, reached out to our managing editor, and asked if they could rewrite it and run it in their paper — and then they paid us.
Since we’re a little fish, we’re generally happy when these bigger fish help us extend our range, and give us credit or money.
We’re trying to get our name out there, let people know we exist, and earn enough so we can keep the lights on and pay our reporters to produce more original journalism, which we hope will then spread and help to set the news agenda.
Journalism is a community endeavour. While news organizations compete, they also build on each other’s work, or look at it from different angles, or correct it, working together to create a fuller, more accurate account of events.
And we want to be part of that public conversation, so we have chosen to make most of our content freely accessible online, even though this leaves it vulnerable to thieves.
There are lots of other journalists and news organizations out there with the same priorities. And they can get really, really frustrated, when a website lifts an article without giving even a “hat tip”, much less a link, much less payment.
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The Liberal is a news website founded in 2014 that at the moment I am writing this has 316,218 likes on Facebook. That’s within shouting distance of the Irish Times’ 369,628.
Leo Sherlock’s LinkedIn profile says he is the founder and CEO of TheLiberal.ie. It also characterizes him as a “media entrepreneur”. The Digital Times published an interview with Sherlock last year, asking him how and why he set up the site, and what it’s all about.
This article quotes Sherlock as saying: “We welcome contributions from writers who have something to say. At the same time, we have a number of reporters who keep us up to the minute with current news stories from Ireland and around the world.”
These reporters seem to have been particularly intrigued with the story of Adriana Watters, a woman from Cork whose son fell in the river and was rescued. The Liberal published at least two articles on the subject.
Each bears a striking similarity to an article that had been previously published in another publication.
The Evening Echo’s website has an article dated 21 May and headlined “Mum Pays Tribute to ‘Guardian Angel’ Who Saved her Little Boy From Drowing in the River Lee”. Here’s an excerpt:
“She really is a true hero. She’s our guardian angel,” said Caleb’s mother, Adriana Watters, who lives on the Lower Glanmire Road.
“I’m just absolutely amazed by this act of selflessness, that she just saw a child in distress and just jumped in without thinking about herself. It’s amazing to see someone do that. It’s not everyone who would. She’s truly special.”
The Liberal’s website has an article dated 21 May at 13:01 titled “Hero: Cork woman praises mother-of-1 who dived into the river Lee yesterday and rescued her 3-yr-old son from drowning”. Here’s an excerpt:
“She really is a true hero. She’s our guardian angel,”, Adriana said.
“I’m just absolutely amazed by this act of selflessness, that she just saw a child in distress and just jumped in without thinking about herself. It’s amazing to see someone do that. It’s not everyone who would. She’s truly special.”
These are not the only similar passages. Have a look for yourself. The photo the Liberal uses is also the same as the one that appeared in the Echo. (If the article disappears, let me know. I have screenshots.)
A few days later, the Examiner’s website posted a followup on Watters’ story. It’s dated 26 May at 3:46pm. Headline: “Gofundme page set up for ‘Guardian angel’ who saved toddler from drowning in the river Lee”.
The Examiner article quotes Watters as saying, “The money is for Maria and her family as a thank you and recognition for her selfless act of bravery. It’s the least we can do.”
The Liberal’s website has an article dated 27 May (the next day) at 8:00 with a very long headline that I won’t quote in full here because we’ve had enough headlines. It includes exactly the same quotation.
These are just two examples. A look through the Liberal’s website turns up more.
On 28 May, the Evening Echo ran an article about protests in Dublin meant to highlight homelessness, which included quotes from IMPACT’s Joe O’Connor. The Liberal ran an article that day that was time-stamped 17:30 and included the same quotations from O’Connor.
On 29 May, I read an article in the Sunday Business Post about Renua trying to rebrand itself. This Liberal article, time-stamped 22:00 on same day, looks to me like a “lite” summary of the SBP article.
Perhaps there is an innocent explanation for the striking similarities between some of the articles on the Liberal’s site, and previously published articles produced by others.
For example, sometimes multiple news organizations pull the same quotations and other information from a press release. If that’s what happened in these cases, though, I was unable to find the press releases in question.
That is not what happened, says independent journalist Tom Tuite, when he wrote an article published on 30 May about two gardai being assaulted by a teenager, and the Liberal published a strikingly similar version later the same day.
“I find it potentially damaging to my news business,” Tuite told me, and “it could encourage other entrants into the news media to do the same.”
“It’s serving nobody well at all, particularly not the public,” Tuite said. It reduces the incentive to find and produce “fresh news”, he says, which could lead to less original journalism being produced to inform the public.
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I tried hard to get someone from the Liberal to talk to me on the record about how it operates, how it sources its content.
Since 26 May, I have emailed the website’s “info” address twice (the only contact the site offers), tracked down an email address that may be Leo Sherlock’s and emailed that too.
Then someone gave me Sherlock’s mobile number. (I later discovered that this was publicly available on his LockSher Group website’s contact page anyway.)
When I called Sherlock on 28 May and said I was a reporter and wanted to talk to him for an article about allegations against the Liberal of plagiarism, he said he was in a meeting and couldn’t talk. When I asked him when would be a more convenient time, he hung up.
Later that day, I got a text from Sherlock’s number saying “Call me now.” So I did. I told him again who I was and what I was calling about, saying I wanted to talk to him on the record about allegations against the Liberal of plagiarism.
He asked me who I’d got his number from, and when I refused to tell him, he said he could call the guards on me for calling him unsolicited. (“Call me now.”)
Then he asked me again and again who I was and who I wrote for and what I was writing about, and whether I was a freelancer or an employee “covered” by Dublin Inquirer, telling me he was taking notes all the while.
And then he hung up on me again, without commenting on the allegations of plagiarism.
Editor’s note: If you want to comment on this article, we’d love to hear from you, but keep in mind that we moderate the comments and aren’t going to approve any personal attacks on Sherlock or unsupported allegations of wrongdoing by The Liberal. If you’re a journalist and you want to point out similarities between an article you’ve written and one The Liberal has published, please provide links to both articles.
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