In a fascinating sidenote to the tragic story surrounding Rich Jeni's death, soon after we posted about it on our site (Saturday night at 8:55 PM EST), we posted a bulletin on MySpace and sent out a few emails to some folks who might have wanted to know about the death of a colleague.
We searched the WWW, but as of 3:15 AM EDT, no other outlets (WWW or MSM) had posted or reported on Jeni's passing. There were a few postings here or there that reported that someone had tacked a line about the death onto the bottom of Jeni's Wikipedia entry, but that it had been taken down.
We retired.
Upon awakening, after analyzing our statistics, we noticed that Warner Brothers' Extra! website (the online component of their syndicated gossip television show) was reporting on the story, with little else besides the Wikipedia info that was original, except the location of Jeni's apartment and the fact that he had been scheduled to appear at the Improv in Chicago Saturday night, but "cancelled several weeks ago."
We also noticed that a few chatrooms here or there were citing a report on Jeni in something called the PostChronicle.com, the byline of which was "Jack Ryan," dated March 10. It too had the reference to Jeni's West Hollywood address, but little original information, outside of a reference to a "loaded gun" (probably indicating that someone called the W. Hollywood cops). The rest was merely a cut and paste of the Richard Jeni Wikipedia entry.
It also contained entire sentences from our original report, and it used the words "privy" and "intractable" leading us to conclude that the site had merely lifted our posting, re-written it slightly and posted it as their original work. They hadn't bothered to credit us, as would be standard practice for any legitimate news outlet.
We wrote an email to them Sunday morning and asked that they credit us, they immediately wrote back:
"I'll check with the author..
and just for the record, your posting is very vague and extremely loose with a word count of 104.
Don't expect an immediate response since the tone of your email was so aggressive.
That's how this "courtesy" thing works.
Marc Centanni
Publisher & CEO" Moments later, they changed the story, inserting the following sentence:
SHECKYmagazine.com and Extra are also reporting the death. (Italics ours.) Hardly an admission that we were first. And, most troubling, any reader who would follow the link might conclude that we were lifting words, phrases and sentences from the Postchronicle report, instead of the other way around.
It might seem like a small matter to some, but it's still important to us to seek credit where it is due. And, for the record, our "tone" in our email to Mr. Centanni could not be characterized as aggressive. We would call it slightly peevish... only asking for what was ours, possibly allowing for a bit of inexperience on their end, as only a rookie (or a thief) would make such an... "omission." Here's our original email:
Hey, fellahs:
If you're going to lift our posting, give us some credit.
That's how this "journalism" thing works.
"It's being reported on internet blog SHECKYmagazine.com ..."
like that, at the beginning of your report. And make it a hyperlink.
Thanks.
--
Brian McKim & Traci Skene
Over 40 Years Combined Standup Experience!
Members of the 50-State Club!
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for our schedule!
(856)XXX-XXXX
Journo to journo. Pub to pub. Editor to editor. Not aggresive. We expected a sheepish response, perhaps with an apology and a pledge to correct the article forthwith, so that there would be no confusion among readers of either or both websites and so that the question of who broke the story (and who was lifting from whom) would be answered definitively.
Instead, all they did was change a sentence or two to strip out the telltale words that tagged the story as ours originally and insert the rather limp admission that "SHECKYmagazine.com and Extra are also reporting the death." Not exactly what we wanted. So we persisted.
Eventually, after two or three email exchanges (in which our professionalism was repeatedly called into question), the following change was made:
SHECKYmagazine.com (who claims to have broke the story first) & Extra are also reporting the death. A grudging admission, to be sure (and gramatically hinky to boot). And the language leaves the question open. (The "claim" we made was easily demonstrated through a cursory examination of timestamps and data on Google, and a simple comparison of language.)
Leaving aside the matter of who beat whom to the punch, of who published the story first, we have the little matter of originality to consider as well. A reasonably intelligent person reading both stories might have concluded that we stole the PostChronicle story and gave them no credit. Setting aside the tone of our email and examining our claim, the editors at that publication might have seen through their apoplexy and conceded that their writer was at the very least guilty of sloth, at the very most guilty of larceny. Either way, we felt it was our duty to correct the record. We did so by requesting that we be credited. It is our practice here to always credit the original website or magazine or newspaper, oftentimes including the byline as well. We expect the same "courtesy" of others.
Now that the dust has settled, we still haven't been vindicated. And the wording of the most recent article hasn't really resolved matters. And we were treated rudely along the way. (At one point, Mr. Centanni wrote, "You didn't break the story.. And you lack considerable communication skills. Be happy with what you have or it will evaporate. This is my last response.") All in all, an unpleasant experience and one that we felt compelled to write about-- which explains this rather lengthy post.
We don't claim to be journalists. (Well, we do, but somewhat facetiously, and we also acknowledge that we're comedians first and foremost.) We're no journalists, but we take great care in deciding what to publish and how we publish it. And we take some measure of pride in publishing content that can't be found elewhere. And, on rare occasions, we take a certain amount of pride-- albeit tinged with a great amount of sadness, as in the case of the passing of Rich Jeni or Mitch Hedberg-- in being the first to publish the news, get out the word, squelch any rumors before they begin or clarify the story. We like to think that we occasionally afford comics and standup fans the opportunity to share their grief, voice their fears or make further arrangements in an online venue peopled with like-minded folks who understand.