This is why I dread reading news reports these days

Posted: Thursday, April 19, 2007 | |

It's been more than 6 months since I last read a newspaper. My dad likes reading the Philippine Star. I've seen enough front page content that made me nauseated that I decided to stop reading the trash people from Manila publishes daily. The idiocy have permeated to some of the local dailies here that I have also sworn them off. But lately, I have been tasked to continuously update a blog for MTC Academy Davao. I've already ranted off an issue regarding that in my previous post. I needed another source of news of the series of tubes when I came upon Davao Today. Their April 13 story "Davao's Falling Bridge" featured Gov. Generoso bridge as one of its posts supporting it collapsed. One of the picture's caption reads:

...one of the bridge’s posts gave way Thursday monring. The debris shown in the picture is a result of the damage. The bridge is one of the oldest in the city.
When you take a closer look at the picture, however, you can see a metal tube that is used in tearing down concrete structures lying in the gutter near the damage. From what I can gather, the damage and the debris were not caused by the structural failure of the bridge. Rather, it is caused by workmen who are tearing the bridge down for repair or replacement. It's nice to know that I can also be nauseated by things online. There's simply nowhere to run.

4 comments:

  1. Unknown said...
  2. The could be charged with plagiarism.

  3. Jim said...
  4. It's worse than plagiarism. It's copyright infringement.

  5. Anonymous said...
  6. hey jim,
    we are looking into that caption in the davao today pic that you ranted about. in all likelihood, it was a captioning mistake, and we will correct it as soon as we've determined that it's a mistake. having said that, it amazes me that you can be so judgmental about davao today over one possible error, as if what we've been publishing are all trash, as if you're so damned perfect.
    carlos conde

  7. Anonymous said...
  8. hey jim,

    are you referring to this supposedly original sunstar story ( http://www.davaocity.gov.ph/NewsArticle.aspx?id=75 )? if you are -- and i repeat, if you are -- then you've just proven yourself to be one of the stupidest bloggers around. that story was a dispatch from the Philippine Information Agency, one in a batch of stories they send out every day to media outlets, for free use and distribution. my publication, davaotoday.com, ran the story ( http://davaotoday.com/2007/04/17/sm-city-davao-to-open-it-park/ ), with full attribution to the PIA at the tagline. based on what appeared in davaocity.gov.ph, however, your favorite newspaper, sun.star davao, did not credit the PIA. so, if what appeared in davaocity.gov.ph was the same as the one that appreared in sun.star, sun.star was actually the one that "plagiarized" the story, not the "davao blog" (which i suspect is davaotoday because we are consistently in the top google searches and we ran the PIA story verbatim) that you said cribbed the story.

    (i have to point out, though, that even if sun.star did not credit the PIA, they cannot be accused of plagiarism because the PIA distributes its stories for free, much like press releases.)

    you know what, careless bloggers and idiots like yourself are the ones cluttering the internet with nonsense and, well, idiocy.

    ciao!

    carlos conde