# I totally don't understand this ''strongly worded suggestion" by Lynn Bodoni **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [February 17, 2009, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217 "2009-02-17T01:44:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217/41 "2009-02-17T23:44:08Z")
> [@XJETGIRLX](#): > > Except that that’s not at all what happened in this case. The OP was sufficiently descriptive enough that anyone should have been able to understand what they were clicking on. Not really. The Op could have included (from the cite) _“Summary: In purporting to “take a look back” at how the economic recovery plan “grew, and grew, and grew,” Fox News’ Jon Scott referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources from those time periods – all of which came directly from a Senate Republican Communications Center press release. A Fox News on-screen graphic even reproduced a typo contained in the Republican press release.”_ And why not? How difficult could that have been? The OP also should have included his own thoughts on it- more than a one liner. Look, if you are outraged enough to start a thread, then you should be outraged enough to include a few thoughts of your own. This was a seagull OP. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217/42 "2009-02-18T03:13:24Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > As it stood, the OP was needlessly vague. Was the press release about some mundane party administrative matter in which case FOX could perhaps be forgiven for not rigorously fact-checking, or was it on some hot political issue that merited a great deal of care and scrutiny (it was). ?!?! It’s perfectly obvious from the title of the post that the issue Brainglutton was talking about wasn’t a failure to fact check but rather an _act of plagiarism_. How do you read the title of the post and not get that? 😕 -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217/43 "2009-02-18T03:16:33Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Not really. The Op could have included (from the cite) _“Summary: In purporting to “take a look back” at how the economic recovery plan “grew, and grew, and grew,” Fox News’ Jon Scott referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources from those time periods – all of which came directly from a Senate Republican Communications Center press release. A Fox News on-screen graphic even reproduced a typo contained in the Republican press release.”_ Eh? That “summary” makes it not at all clear what the story is supposed to be about and what was wrong with what the reporter did. From the summary you just gave, I conclude that the reporter used information from a press release. That’s not unusual. **BrainGlutton** ’s shorter summary was _better_ than the one you just quoted. -FrL- And why not? How difficult could that have been? The OP also should have included his own thoughts on it- more than a one liner. Look, if you are outraged enough to start a thread, then you should be outraged enough to include a few thoughts of your own. This was a seagull OP. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217/44 "2009-02-18T03:16:48Z")
> [@Gfactor](#): > > Once again, not speaking for **Lynn** , but huh? **Exapno** , Yeah, I put two issues into the same post because they stemmed from the same thought. I didn’t think they were that hard to separate, but since mods went out and took care of the copyright issues there’s no point in going through the whole thing point by point. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217/45 "2009-02-18T03:26:47Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > ?!?! > > It’s perfectly obvious from the title of the post that the issue Brainglutton was talking about wasn’t a failure to fact check but rather an _act of plagiarism_. How do you read the title of the post and not get that? 😕 > > -FrL- Plagiarism is theft. Press releases are generally released to the press in hopes that they will be reused in their entirety. A responsible press organization will do independent research of the claims in a press release because the press release is by its very nature a biased source. But they cannot steal what is freely given. And the issue Brainglutton was talking about was not perfectly obvious, as evidenced by this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217/46 "2009-02-18T12:30:22Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > Plagiarism is theft. Press releases are generally released to the press in hopes that they will be reused in their entirety. Without acknowledgment? -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![XJETGIRLX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9fc29f/32.png) [@XJETGIRLX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XJETGIRLX)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217/47 "2009-02-18T14:47:45Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Not really. The Op could have included (from the cite) _“Summary: In purporting to “take a look back” at how the economic recovery plan “grew, and grew, and grew,” Fox News’ Jon Scott referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources from those time periods – all of which came directly from a Senate Republican Communications Center press release. A Fox News on-screen graphic even reproduced a typo contained in the Republican press release.”_ > > And why not? How difficult could that have been? > > The OP also should have included his own thoughts on it- more than a one liner. Look, if you are outraged enough to start a thread, then you should be outraged enough to include a few thoughts of your own. This was a seagull OP. Your example is needlessly wordy, and obfuscates the point of the post. The point has nothing to do with the content of the press release - nobody cares that the story was about economic recovery. The point was that the press release was printed verbatim without attribution. If you want to argue that he should have included more of his own thoughts, that’s valid but that’s not why Lynn chastised him. She asked him to provide a short summary, which he did. ---
**Author:** ![XJETGIRLX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9fc29f/32.png) [@XJETGIRLX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XJETGIRLX)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217/48 "2009-02-18T14:54:37Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > Plagiarism is theft. Press releases are generally released to the press in hopes that they will be reused in their entirety. “in their entirety” _including attribution_. I’ve written many press releases that were published by local media. Most of the time they are not simply reprinted in their entirety. Ok, actually none of them were simply reprinted in their entirety. One came very close, but they did change two sentences slightly. In every case the stories were attributed to me or my organization. Generally, the by line read “Special to the [newspaper name] by [my name].” ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217/49 "2009-02-18T15:28:11Z")
I had heard nothing about this story beforehand, and yet instantly understood what it was about on the basis of **Brainglutton** ’s title. All the supposedly more informative summaries seem to say exactly the same thing, but with more words. By which I mean to say that they contain the same information, but expressed with a higher degree of prolixity. One might almost say that their information content per word was lower. Still not particularly pitworthy, though. I’d be entirely in favour of having a single thread for political link-of-the-day stuff like this. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217/50 "2009-02-18T16:54:06Z")
> [@XJETGIRLX](#): > > Your example is needlessly wordy, and obfuscates the point of the post. The point has nothing to do with the content of the press release - nobody cares that the story was about economic recovery. The point was that the press release was printed verbatim without attribution. > . Then why did the cite not mention this in their **Summary**? Clearly they thought that the Summary given gave the critical points. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217/51 "2009-02-19T20:48:31Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Without acknowledgment? > > -FrL- I doubt many people who issue them would assume that the paper/magazine would do so - but they would be delighted if they did, because it gives the supposedly greater credibility of the paper to the press release. My friend who is an editor at a trade rag would never reprint a press release as an article. Maybe the problem is that some posters don’t have the background knowledge of why this kind of thing is considered to be bad? I suppose without this the title could be considered mysterious. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-totally-dont-understand-this-strongly-worded-suggestion-by-lynn-bodoni/486217.md?page=2)