This Close Up gaffe is a great example of what happens when organisations don't quite connect with the way the world is changing.
The show recreated a segment from American show ABC, at times verbatim, with no acknowledgement of the original piece.
Let's be real about this: every day reporters looks to the work of their peers for inspiration. And so much of journalism these days builds on, deepens or find new angles on stories created by others, echoing all of life in this hyperlinked world of ours.
There are salient lessons in this Close Up piece, not just for media, but for all organisations, as we come to grips with changes to the way we use and interact with information.
Increasingly, non-media organisations are grappling with the fine but very clear line that exists between the curation of content - a perfectly valid and constructive art - and ripping off the work of others.
The opportunities presented by new direct-to-consumer publishing technology, the removal of traditional hierarchical communications barriers, the fragmentation of audiences and the truly niched audience bases that are emerging mean every organisation is a potential publisher or broadcaster of sometimes highly-specialist content.
Sometimes this content is created from scratch. Other times, sites provide a portal that links the audience to like minded ideas, often providing context and wrap-around to the original content or commentary on it.
So it stands to reason that we all need to come to grips with the difference between curation and plagiarism.
To stay on the safe side of the line, think about the job that galleries do in curating the works of others. Shel Holtz explains that idea elegantly in this clip from IABC World (San Diego, last month - stunning).
Curators don't claim it as their own, they happily acknowledge the artist, even helping audiences connect with more of his or her work once their interest is piqued (echoing today's online 'link culture'). Furthermore, they understand two things about linking. Firstly, that there is value in providing introductions to the work of others, and secondly, information territorialism is last decade's thinking. Todays consumers live their lives in a link economy. They are used to open-source everything, and don't take kindly to side-steps and fudging. Transparency, honesty and authenticity are bottom line to this generation of media consumer.
Curators don't just slap up a title and a bit of background, they really think about the context that the work is being shown in, and what their own specific environment can add to the experience of viewing the work.
There's nothing wrong with being inspired by the work of others, and I'd venture to suggest that in information terms, we're all collaborators - even media outlets that consider themselves to be fierce competitors. The media consumer doesn't draw a line in his or her head about where all the different elements of the story have come from - to them, it's just a mash-up of information that continuously forms and reforms. However in a world where content can be cheapened to the point of being deemed worthless, we must continue to demand that peoples' work is valued, by continuing to acknowledge the source.
We live in a world where the work of others is so accessible it's dizzying. One of my ZB colleagues, the long time journalist and very wise human being, Lesley Murdoch, refers to the glittering news array we face at 5am every morning as 'the candy store'. Her counsel is wise: make your selection carefully, then leave. Or else you'll end up mesmerised by the bright, shiny colours, and you'll never get enough focus to get a talkback show off the ground.
The temptation to pinch the candy must be huge for those resource hungry news organisations who have progressively found their staffing whittled down to near nothingness yet are still expected to churn out an hour of quality programming, five nights a week.
Nonetheless, for Close Up, the litmus test should have been a simple question: are we comfortable being transparent that we've taken another media outlet's work and simply 'New Zealand-ised' it, or do our viewers expect more from us?
It's the sort of pondering that PR and marketing departments world wide, need to be doing, as we all come to grips with where the line sits, and what constitutes crossing it. More often than not, the answer is glaringly obvious. We just have to be brave enough to ask the question. And respectful enough of our readers and viewers not to duck the answer.
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