There’s been plenty of discussion over the past couple days about Huffington Post’s habit of posting articles that consist of the first few paragraphs of someone else’s story sans commentary and then linking to the full piece. This was first raised by Whet Moser at the Chicago Reader, who noticed that HuffPost Chicago (a first attempt at thinking locally, hence its “beta” designation) was doing this to previews of local concerts. In some cases, by copying just the first few paragraphs, HuffPo had reposted the entire article. This is because, as Moser put it, “that is the whole article, dumbass” [italics in original]. For example, click through the thumbnails below to screen shots as provided by Moser:
This has resulted in some serious discussion at Techmeme, as it should be, but my question is: What took so long? I covered the launch of Huffington Post when I was writing the Blogometer at National Journal’s Hotline two and a half years ago, and kept a close eye on the development of the site. If you recall, the site was the subject of some some scrutiny and fun-making ahead of its launch. Huffington’s venture survived the early gibes, long enough at least to attract new ones.
Maybe six months in, I noticed that headlines on the front page linked to just the kind of pages now being critcized. I never wrote about it, but I did bring it up to my boss, who also thought it strange. While Moser has stumbled across a particularly egregulous example of the practice — and in fairness, HuffPo’s Jonah Peretti claims it was an editing mistake — they’re already pushing the envelope of what’s acceptable. And in this case, I think even Sam Zell would have a point.
Bloggers are frequently given to quoting long stretches of others’ writing, but as fair use guidelines usually require, they do so for purposes of adding commentary. HuffPo does not, which raises the question of how much Huffington Post is an authentic blog and how much it is a media company appropriating others’ credibility.
Also raising this question is the new book, The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging. Here’s the cover, available from Simon & Schuster:
Notice anything? Like, say, a complete lack of original blogging voices? Craig Newmark is the lone individual whose reputation was first made online, and even then his rep is not as a blogger but as the founder of Craigslist. Huffington Post built some credibility over the past few years, with myself and other informed consumers of news, by giving a bigger soapbox to lesser known talents such as Jason Linkins and Lee Stranahan. I’d say HuffPo has done them a lot of good, and they would say the same.
But then there are those like Walt Moser and Monica Kendrick, the author of the review noted above. In both circumstances, HuffPo falls short of being a democratizing force in the media. In the dichotomy between its famous and non-famous contributors, HuffPo is trying to have it both ways: they will elevate new writers, but only so far. And the same is true of its bid to provide a new way of experiencing the news: sometimes, all that means is appropriating yours.
The Most Comment-Spammed Blog in America
All irritation at being notified of new comment spam is equal, but the amusements to be found in some spams are more equal than others:
The last time I wrote about comment spam was in April, when I received maybe five to ten such submissions per week. In the final months of 2008 that number is up to something like five to ten per day. There’s no good reason why this should be — as you may have noticed, the second half of the year has been observably less bloggy than the first, and notwithstanding a few spiky links from big traffic-drivers, the daily visitor count has been at best unpromising. So why the surge?
My guess is that unsophisticated pliers of the trade have become a little more sophisticated, and so must be trying — and failing — more often and in greater numbers. I don’t think these are the Russo-Turkic schemers akin to Jonathan Franzen’s Gitanas Misevicius. Much of that, I believe, now defaults to spam filters.
Instead, these comments make it all the way to the moderation queue and seem to come from native English-speakers who have a website to promote, know a little bit about how search engines work, and aim to elevate the PageRank of their meager obsessions (or unwitting clients) in the sections of a blog they found on Google or Technorati. My blog, in fact.
And sometimes they come back. Earlier today, an algorithmic process denied a now-deleted comment access to my latest post, about the Phillips Foundation’s Journalism Fellowship Program. It went something like:
Not exactly a constructive comment, but snarky enough to wave through… except for the business e-mail account and URL of said business pasted into the address field. And the business? A Welsh company selling organic meat (a tautology, if you ask me) on the open Interwebs.
I hadn’t even noticed it until I received an angry e-mail from the bon mot’s possessive owner, someone whom I’d wager fits the above description. In the interests of unusually equal amusement, here’s the e-mail exchange in full:
In retrospect, I believe he was genuinely confused by the phrase “SEO strategy” — after all, if he wasn’t, he probably wouldn’t have left a comment in the first place.
P.S. And to my erstwhile correspondent: If you leave a comment this time, what the heck: I’ll give you one free non-piscatory fish out of the Akismet spam filter.
Update: In case you’re wondering, “I love reading Blog P.I. because…” is the default opening line if you start from the Contact page. And speaking of defaults, I wish WordPress wouldn’t promise that the “blog admin … will be able to restore it immediately.” I’ll decide when I’m able to restore it.
N.B. The title is a reference to DeLillo’s Most Photographed Barn in America. Beyond the explicit nod to “The Corrections”, I count at least three more literary references that I swear were not premeditated.