Vic, if ScreenRant scored an exclusive interview with JJ Abrams, and in the interview Abrams revealed that William Shatner definitely has a role in the Star Trek Sequel. Variety sees your article and the next day gets quotes from Abrams and Shatner, and publishes the news story 2 days later without any mention of Screenrant, would you be even a little peeved?

Pete,

Of course, but I'm just wondering with it being Sundance and the place is crawling with journalists whether after your interview Variety may have spoken to him and he mentioned it to them as well.

You know where I stand with this whole Variety issue, I never link them for just this reason - it just made me pause when I saw quotes attributed to the guy that didn't appear in your post.

Vic

I didn't think anyone would think that Variety just copy and pasted my quotes into their news story. Of course they did follow-up work.

Ok. You KNOW whose side I'm on here. :-)

Vic

I know, I just wanted to be clear that I wasn't accusing them of outright plagiarism.

I would just like to say that I have never heard of /Film stealing any news but have heard of Variety doing it. I like the fact that everytime something new is discovered, like an image to an upcoming movie, that Peter will always give credit to whoeve sent in the image. It's always been like that since I've been here.

I guess shame on Variety for having the reputation of always stealing news from online sites. Maybe someone should report something ridiculous that we all know wouldn't be real news, and see if Variety picks up on it and actually runs it a few days later.

If this was a lower profile blog than it would be different, as that is a well read blog then it could stand to reason that some of the info was delved from you story. Although Goliath recognizing David is giving away power which is unlikely to change.
I have noticed that in the blogs on their site they are good at linking to blogs and articles that the bloggers find around the web, (so it would seem they are learning).

I agree Variety and other news orgs don't credit blogs and other new media sources as much as they should (if ever), and often when they do they don't provide an actual link, or only vaguely refer to an "online movie gossip blog" or some such...

However, your assertion that "If The New York Times was working on a story and The Washington Post broke the story first, The Times piece would mention that the news broke to the public via the Washington Post" is wholly incorrect. They will if attribution is needed, but not if they were able to verify the facts on their own... even sometimes if they first heard about an item in the other paper. There is no "hat tip" rule of any sort in journalism, in the AP guidebook, or that is held to by any journalist I know. Alas, there is barely even a need for a news outlet to credit another for breaking the news first... when it happens its incredibly rare, and usually is included because it has some importance to the story itself.

All that said, as I've emailed to you directly, a number of photos and stories I've written about have been reused on /Film without attribution, and when notified, /Film never acknowledged these examples with an apology or follow up credit.

This is a fantastic blog, and you work your ass off on it, but don't forget these things go both ways.

Dave, the hat tip is ot in the AP rules, but the New York Times would print it that way, and you know it.

Re guarding any claim of stories we've repurposed without credit, I'd like to see evidence of anything like that. Any time we receive an email about something like that we take it very seriously and make the proper corrections if appropriate. I've just searched my gmail account and can not find any correspondence from you.

I just resent the email I'd sent you last October to the orfilms account I'd orginally sent - if you have an alternate address, please let me know.

But as a news junkie who has had many discussions with LA Times and other journos about such topics, I can tell you that there is no justification for acknowledging another news source scooped them. If you can find an example disproving this, please do, but I've never seen it. In blogs, yes, because we're a funky bunch. In MSM?

As mentioned, they have a hard enough time properly citing sources - why would they go out of their way to point out, "Oh, by the way, while we verified these facts on our own, the Boston Globe printed a similar news item 2 days ago."

A link has always been considered credit

i had a comment about your "sourcing" one of your readers for a scoop that went up and is now gone... What's up with that??? i'm a fan but i think ur fanboys are getting rediculous..... u have a link to Aint It Cool News for your Dealpool/ Wolverine photos but i'm assuming they had the whole story first. a link is not putting "via......"

Can someone tell me why my comment was deleted? Let me try again...

I don't get your logic. Variety did all the work on their own. They started on it before you even heard of the story. Just because you posted the story first doesn't mean you own the rights to it.

Let's say I run into Marc Webb on the street and he tells me that he's working on The Spectacular Now. I go home and write this information on my personal blog. Does that mean Variety has to give me credit for publishing it first?

Variety is the most popular trade paper in the industry. Is it so hard to believe that they might develop their own stories? They have their own sources and connections. If they do their own work, they have no need to credit you, or anyone, who found this story separately.

I have yet to see any proof that Variety is stealing stories, and I consider it unprofessional that /Film accused them of doing so before they knew the facts.

You writing something on your personal blog is very different from one of the biggest movie news websites on the internet reporting the information. And honestly, if your little blog had credible information (ie proof) than it should be credited if Variety had known about it before running their version of the story. But chances are, Variety probably won't see stuff on little blogs, that seems understandable. On the other hand, I have at least 6 people in my address book who write for Variety and subscribe to /Film's rss, including the deputy editor.

Do a search about Variety stealing stories and you will find tons of clear examples, for instance, Collider's 300 sequel/prequel story. There are tons of examples like that, examples that prove that if the original source (in the case above, collider) never ran their report, variety wouldn't have picked up on the news until months later if not at all. When something can be proven to be a direct effect, it is proven. I know I can not prove this direct effect with my Spectacular story, but to say that there is no proof of variety stealing stories would be beyond ignorant, and just plain ridiculous.

You should take a class in ethics in journalism, sir.

I'm not saying how it should be, I'm saying how it is.

Variety has been reporting entertainment news for a hundred years (literally). They are not out chasing down "scoops" like all you movie blogs and websites (who all tend to report any random rumor, only a percentage of which are true) -- they are getting information directly from agents, publicists or the talent themselves (or at least someone peripherally involved). And they usually don't report anything until ink is on contracts.

They are not crediting you because, to be blunt, they don't NEED you. You are not a legitimate "source" when they can get it (or at least verify it) directly from the people who are actually involved in the projects they are reporting. And unless you establish some kind of relationship with Variety where the value and credibility of your information somehow supersedes what they can get from their existing sources, don't expect it to change.

It's astonishing how many movie sites don't understand this.

Oh okay, sorry I'm wrong and you are 100% right. Discussion over. Apologies.

LOL

PS: should mention that I very much enjoy this site and everything you do. Just calling out Variety to establish some kind of pecking order cred is unneeded. You guys rock, do your thing!

Not to be a ninny, but I HAVE seen /film articles here which don't name any source, and aren't stated as being "exclusive", so i can only assume that they were taken from somewhere else and not credited.

I can remember many where readers actually post here in the talkbacks requesting sources. No biggie.

But this juts seems kind of childish to post about, brings down the atmosphere. And with what Screen Rant mentioned about there being added info from Variety's source in their story, seems someone is left here with their foot in their mouth.

Juss sayin.

Oh, and how do I create one of those fancy intense debate accounts?

We always try to list sources when possible and available. If this has happened at all in the past, it was indeed a mistake. We rarely if ever get any email complaints about no source being listed.

As for Variety's extra information, they were able to get two extra sentences of quotes. None of which provide any more information than can be gleamed from the original /Film article. Listen, people steal our stuff all the time and don't link us as a source or via (we even do via links). It's not a huge deal. Ask any online movie journalist and you'll get an earful about Variety's policies toward movie sites/blogs. They are read by the entire industry, and its about a lack of respect more than anything else. A link from variety won't give us a huge bump in traffic, and I'm not really concerned with that.

Nothing new here. It's sad, it's annoying, but this is the dog-eat-dog world in which we live in, where everybody and his dog is looking at getting ahead by stepping upon whoever they have to, when-ever they have to. Whether they are a huge Hollywood trade paper, or a small village newspaper. Like somebody already mentioned, you could simply stoop to their petty level of failing to credit Variety properly/at all if you wish to 'get even' so-to-speak.

Pete,

Are you sure that he just didn't let slip the same info to them as well? I see some quotes attributed to him in their article that I couldn't find in yours.

As my second favorite artist Pablo Picasso once said..."Good artists copy and link their sources. Great artists steal and not give a fuck cause they are asses"...its just the way of life...ah well, we all know Variety sucks and /Film rocks out with their cocks out!!!

Blogger news is shuffled around the net like crazy. It is good to get another jab at Variety though.

George, Fred, Larry_Chimp_Man...Variety employees? Or simply chumps? You decide.

Variety is a piece of crap. It's nothing but ads and liberalism. And they steal.

So don't link to them. You can credit them without giving them any website traffic. Until they learn ethics, then why treat them with the respect we show our peers?

Variety has done that to every other major film site/blog. Latino Review, CHUD, AICN and now /film.

you guys gonna cry? welcome to the real world /film

two words
f*cking asshole

uuh, escalation

1 word: a-hole

I would think it could be coincidental, if it wasn't for Variety's history of stealing scoops from LatinoReviews and others in the past.

If they're stealing from you, it just means they have no class and can't credit you for being better then them. /Film is far better than those losers over at Variety.

as much as i'm on your side, i'm not quite sure why you feel it necessary to share this with the readership...

I love /film; however, do not be too quick to judge. You may find that they also independently found this and will be looking rather stupid. Besides, such a post degrades the caliber of the site.

Oh no the di'int! Can't you guys do something about it? I mean it is great and all to call them on their shit but i mean... legally, or is it just too tideous?

Screw you variety! link to your sources

Let me get this straight. When Variety steals a scoop without credit it's labeled foul play but when you do it Peter it's just common practice? Half your articles are ripped right from the front pages of other blogs, that's just how blogs like this work.

We always link/credit our sources, and never EVER claim to be the source of information that we gather from elsewhere

Well, we can't link to print media, can we? So we name that and credit it. So it isn't strictly true to say we link to everything because sometimes that isn't even possible.

I quoted a radio show, for example, in my Inkheart piece but there was no way I could link to it.

Much as happens with Production Weekly over and over.

I think people have jumped the gun with my comment here. I really didn't think it was unclear what I meant.

/Film always credits its sources. What are you talking about?

Read what I wrote. "In the rare cases neither of these is possible, that's because it was our story in the first place"

We can't exactly credit ourselves, can we?

I believe Adam was responding to Larry actually

We link to our sources - or, where no link is possible, name the source. Or, in the rare cases neither of these is possible... that's because it was our story in the first place.

F*ck 'em, they'd be nowhere without net bloggers these days. They lost touch years ago. Good on you Peter and the /F crew!

To quote Howard Stern:

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

like i said who reads Variety anyway.. Dont worry Peter, feel proud that they need to steal off you..