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A comment on Is It Journalism, or Just a Repackaged Press Release? Here's a Tool to Help.

Re:Is It Journalism, or Just a Repackaged Press Release? Her... by eli on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @12:45PM (#5596227)
Depending on the release and the article, I'm not convinced that rewriting or lifting words from a press release is always a bad thing. Is it possible to write a story about the latest Consumer Price Index without it being substantially based on this press release http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf ? Is it possible to write about a newly announced iPhone without lifting data from Apple PR events or releases?

I would rather have an article that lifts a technical phrase from a press release over one that attempts to reframe or extrapolate from it in a way that is no longer factually correct.

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Re:Is It Journalism, or Just a Repackaged Press Release? Her... by fjh on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @01:10PM (#5596429)
> Is it possible to write about a newly announced iPhone without lifting data from Apple PR events or releases?

No, but writing about the newly announced iPhone shouldn't really be called journalism.

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Re:Is It Journalism, or Just a Repackaged Press Release? Her... by eli on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @04:24PM (#5597737)
Why not? So is a press release never news?
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Re:Is It Journalism, or Just a Repackaged Press Release? Her... by lostlogin on Wednesday April 24, 2013 @04:39AM (#5600465)
I agree with both of you. A journalist (in my opinion) shouldn't be someone who rewrites press releases. Having just finished Robert Fisks column before I came here, I'm certain of that. Not everyone can be where he is however, and the small local stories need to be written. Re-writing press releases is a mile from these situations however - at least read around the subject and compare/contrast (?pad it out) with what others are doing.
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Re:Is It Journalism, or Just a Repackaged Press Release? Her... by fyi80 on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @01:22PM (#5596517)
This is a solved problem for journalists, and it is called "citing your sources". Either your source is anonymous and you give a good reason, or your source is cited.

When sources are not cited, we have PR or lies masquerading as journalism.

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Re:Is It Journalism, or Just a Repackaged Press Release? Her... by SilasX on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @02:28PM (#5597008)
That'll be the day:

"According to a press release by [organization], '[entire rest of article]'."

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