My unique ability to irritate people is on full display today. Apparently, I annoyed Wick because he thought I hadn’t read Tim’s link to the Cowboys practice facility story yesterday. (Can’t prove that.) My point in putting up the links was to show that I thought the DMN wasn’t giving enough credit to the AP on that one story, primarily because they have broken all the big parts of this scandal so far. That led a FBvian to tell me that I’m too obsessed with this, that no one at the DMN cares about these little things.
Oh, but they do. Trust me, journalists are 30 times more thin-skinned than the sources they cover. And, to be fair, a friend inside the paper pointed out that the AP itself kind of skimped on mentioning the developments in the scandal to-date so it wouldn’t have to name the DMN several times in story.
My I’m not saying AP didn’t score a good interview that led to important material. I’m simply curious why AP, for its part, wouldn’t have folded in essential details that DMN been reporting for weeks – and AP has been putting on the wires with credits to us – in that same story. My theory is, AP wanted to focus on its exclusive. By citing that other material from our past work, it would be forced to credit the DMN more often throughout its story. If correct, then DMN isn’t the only one guilty of the violation you’re alleging.
