Eggs

krappyrubsnif

Pure eggs-ploitation. Actually, it's in the public domain, so they don't technically need to ask permission to retell the story - but it would be nice (a courtesy as well as more professional) if they would be more accurate about where they nicked it from.

ADGS

Even if they do speak to you, they'll still get stuff wrong, as when the Camden Gazette - on their front page, no less - suggested I was drinking beer. The very thought. Cider 4 Life.

tosscat

I know, I never use the word kids.

katiejane

@ tosscat - do you use the word teatime?

tosscat

No, never, I would use 'for us teas' where applicable.

Papa

That's very bad form on the Gazette's part.

We need to buck the modern trend for increasingly poor journalism and if a story is original, as the thread on SG.org is then you credit where it came from.

Local newspapers need to adapt to survive. Using websites like this to get stories, and good local ones at that, is a decent one I'd say but that should involve getting on here, talking to those involved and crediting the site.

If the Gazette and Journal and owners Archant see SG.org as a rival they won't quote then local newspapers are in even more trouble that we thought.

Brodiej

Journo's by their own admission are lazy. If you work for the Islington Gazette imagine how useful it is to have local issues and scandals talked about in the public domain where you can copy, paste and add a bit of spin. Perfect. Who gives a monkeys whether the source is quoted! And if your story makes the press, you shoud feel flattered that it was felt to be newsworthy. Egg swapping in Finsbury Park though.......NOT NEWS.

ADGS

Back when I lived in Derby - and we're talking 20 years or so back, so well before anyone could blame shoddy journalism on cutbacks inspired by online competition - the Derby Evening Telegraph once ran, as its second local news story of the day, in prime position, a story about someone who had bought a stained glass window which, in certain lights, looked a bit spooky. Compared to that, eggswapping is Lord Lucan found running Wikileaks from the home he shares with Elvis.

Ian

@ADGS was it a "Sataned glass window"?

Brodiej

Potential Islington Gazette news.....

1. "Cheese War" - Sainsburys and Tescos SGR in bitter price battle on Wensleydale could lead to melt down.
2. "Papagone in quiet meal shock" - A restaurant diner commented "i could hear what my wife was saying, it was bizarre"
3. "210 bus on-time" - commuter x commented "yeah, it turned up on time"
4. "Beep beep, not cheap cheap" - Local bird imitates oyster clocking in and out noise, commuters tricked into not topping up. Bird is killed.
5. "Parking chaos fuels resident rage" - Local resident fumed "i had to park 10 yards from my house, someone should resign over this, i'm f*cking raging "
6. Dog shit found next to neighbours xmas tree. Resident x commented "i don't know how it got there, i don't have a dog?"
7. Sugar lounge to launch Sugar Fest - An open air 48 hour techno and trance extravaganza. Local residents approve providing the chairs are brought in at 11pm.

Ian

I can offer quotes for second source: 1. I wasn't even going to buy Wensleydale, I'm usually a straight down the line cheddar man, mature of course, but at these prices even I'm swapping cheese. 2. There wasn't even a birthday for the serving staff to break the silence by banging saucepans. Odd that, no birthday meal on the 29th February? 3. I had left late from my house on Regina Road, expecting the 210 to be its usual laggard self. As it flashed past I started to run and slipped on some dog mess (also to be used for 6). 4. If it wasn't for the trees round here, this would never have happened. 5. ... and when I went back it was a blimmin IS-J business permits, not IS-J residents so I'm also looking down the barrels of a £50 fine. 6. See above. 7. I would have loved to go, because I love sugar and techno, but it clashed with the Karmenz party opposite which was banging.

ADGS

Sainsbury's has Wensleydale? I was in there earlier and was baffled by how many cheddars they were offering while apparently failing to sell any of the other great British cheeses.

Aleister Crowley said that the true meaning of the number 210 was too holy even to be spoken. I like to think he was anticipating the mysteries of this bus route.

WillM

Back in the early 2000s, the county paper of County Leitrim in Ireland once had an article covering all of its Page 3 headlined "Man falls asleep in pub". Whilst comprehensive, and containing various photos (the pub, the man, the man's dog, and if memory serves, also a photo of the chair he fell asleep in), and interviews (the man, the pub's landlady (not pictured - something I felt was an oversight), not to mention friends of the man), there was a certain newsworthiness lacking...

andy

@BrodieJ - Impressively casual. Do you teach an MA in journalism?

Being a journalist used to be a serious job. Now it's just interns cobbling together inanities from the internet.

Ian

@andy there is a subgenre of stories taken from the internet which I particularly admire for its cheek and half arsedness, which is the "some people I follow on Twitter said some stuff yesterday". Latest manifestation of rubbish article cobbled together I saw was [this](http://ind.pn/erH9Nd) which I thought was pretty lame by the standards even of this modern journalistic technique. It is also a random quote generator - find an issue, take a twitter quote from a member of the public as if they become an expert by dint of having expressed a view and publish it. Fills space I guess, but does lead one to wonder whether it is not easier just to follow Twitter yourself and forget about the newspapers. Ah ..

Papa

BrodieJ, yes but there used to be an honour in lazy journalism tied in with entire afternoons spent int the pub.

Now its just low paid or no-paid staff churning out grist to the constantly running internet mill.

Lazy journalism's not what it used to be.

Ian, the Twitter story or quotes is my favourite new lazy journalism phenomenon, can't help but feel it's ruining the completely made up unnamed friend quote cottage industry though.