Friday, July 13, 2007
PRESS RELEASE PUBLISHED
Australian Muslim commentator Irfan Yusuf claims:
Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph included an opinion piece titled “Hizb ut-Tahrir wants a Caliph”, supposedly written—and seemingly submitted to the Tele—by media spokesman for the Australian branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, Wassim Doureihi.
I’ve just spoken to Wassim. He wrote it.
In fact, Doureihi confirmed to Crikey yesterday afternoon that neither he nor anyone else from his organisation submitted anything to the Tele.
Wassim tells me the press release was sent to the Telegraph.
So where did the Tele’s Opinion Editor Tim Blair source this article?
From the press release that was sent to the Telegraph.
Doureihi sees the article as surprisingly similar in content to a recent Hizb ut-Tahrir press release placed on their website.
The very same press release was sent to the Telegraph. All I did was put Wassim’s name on it and remove some self-quoting intro lines - which, seeing as he wrote the thing, seemed fair enough. People are now alert to Hizb ut-Tahrir’s beliefs, expressed in their own words. It was a press release; publicity is usually the aim.
If The Australian thinks Media Watch is suspect for dealing with alleged jihadists, the Tele must be equally as suspect for reproducing articles by Islamists.
No. Media Watch used uncredited Muslim Village researchers to attack the Telegraph and this site. All I did was publish a press release.
But more fundamental than this, what on earth was Tim Blair thinking when he decided to reprint (and almost plagiarise) a press release as an article without seeking the author’s permission?
I was thinking this: here’s a press release from Hizb ut-Tahrir. This is what they believe. Let’s publish it. (As for Irfan’s accusation of almost plagiarism ... the piece ran under the author’s name.)
UPDATE. Further criticism from Margo Kingston:
Since he started his blog years ago with the romantic sales pitch of going out on his own, Blair has had well paid editing and writing hobs with The Bulletin, and now News Limited, where he’s the paper’s opinion editor.
No such “romantic sales pitch” was ever made. I have never had a “hob”. I am not the opinion editor at a publication called News Limited.
Ever read anything on his blog critiquing Packer or Murdoch?
Search my blog(s). Suggested terms may include “chulov”, “adams”, and “rundle”, among others connected to Murdoch and Packer publications.
Blair is a part of the power establishment . Role - attack dog.
Kingston once was a part of the power establishment. Now she lives with her mother on the Gold Coast.
Tim Dunlop began his online writing on Webdiary, where he became a highly valued contributor. He moved to America and began his own blog, Road to Surfdom, which gained a respected reputation for factual accuracy and well argued pieces against invading Iraq. Lo and behold, just after Fairfax had forced me out News Limited offered Tim a blog on their sites.
What will Tim do? (See the discussion at Road to Surfdom here.) I know what I did when Fairfax unilaterally pulled a piece of mine. And when Fairfax ordered me to delete the archives of then Webdiary columnist Antony Loewenstein.
Defying Margo’s pressure, Dunlop hasn’t quit.
For more on the Tim Blair style, see this Media Watch transcript. And this follow up piece.
What Margo describes as a “follow up piece” appeared years prior to the previously-mentioned item.
Imagine a Media Watch which didn’t criticise the ABC. It would be meaningless, yes? Well so is Tim Blair when it comes to media and political commentary.
Yet Margo knows where to go for online information:
I got the news from Tim Blair’s site ...
UPDATE III. KK has further details on that secret press release.
UPDATE IV. More from Irfan:
Proper and professional opinion editors print opinion pieces which are submitted to them by the authors or which they commission the authors to write. If an opinion editor wishes to reproduce something on his/her page from another source, s/he will obtain permission from the author.
1. The piece wasn’t “from another source”. 2. Press releases carry a certain amount of implied permission to publish ... an amount somewhere around the 100% level.
There are proper and professional opinion editors. And then there is Tim Blair. According to Blair, it’s enough that the Press Release somehow managed to end up in the possession of the Tele.
It didn’t “somehow manage” to end up in the Telegraph’s possession. It was sent by Hizb ut-Tahrir.
That gives Blair the trigger to publish it as an opinion piece without seeking any permission from the supposed author or the organisation.
Correct.
So next time any lobby group or company issues a press release and it ends up at the Tele’s offices in Surry Hills, they shouldn’t be surprised if their media contact becomes the author of an article edited and published without their permission.
Exactly right. Be warned, press release writers! Your press release may be published by the press!
I’ve had some disagreements with Tom Switzer, opinion editor at The Australian over the past few months. But Switzer is a true professional. He won’t take a press release or blog entry, edit it and then print it as an op-ed piece. If he wants to use excerpts from an outside source for his “Cut and Paste” section, he will obtain permission from the source.
Tom Switzer runs pieces by me in “Cut and Paste” all the time. First I know of this is when I read the Australian. No permission is requested or required.
I’ve had a Korean newspaper in Melbourne ask me permission to reproduce a piece I wrote for The Age. I’ve had the editor of an Anglican parish newsletter in Queensland seeking my permission to reproduce an article that first appeared in the Courier-Mail.
Well, of course. I do the same when sourcing material originally published elsewhere. Irfan is now talking about something other than press releases.
Given that Blair never even bothered to contact anyone from HT, the question arises: How did he reach the conclusion that Wassim Doureihi wrote the press release?
Because he wrote it. His name was on it. And he’s subsequently confirmed he was the author.
Anyway, Tim. Let’s presume that you did the correct and proper thing. If I get my Christian mate to write a press release on his views on the management of a certain Christian denomination and send it to the Tele, will you edit the article and run it without first getting his permission?
I might, if it’s interesting. What world does Irfan inhabit that requires permission to publish a press release? Ol’ Irfy also points out that Hizb ut-Tahrir has re-published the article:
Just for the record, this article is an edited version of the HT press release issued yesterday 11/07/07. It was included in Daily Telegraph (DT) as an opinion piece (with DT editing) without the prior permission of Wassim Doureihi or representatives from HT.
Hizb ut-Tahrir ran the piece without seeking permission.
UPDATE V. Irfan supporter Paul is almost as stupid as Irfan himself:
In respectavle real-world journalism, people tend to obtain permission before using the (presumably copyrighted) words of others.
The word they use to describe it is “ethnics”.
UPDATE VI. Irfan changes his story. Now the “real issue” is the Telegraph’s indulgence of “Islamist groups”:
I’m glad Blair posted the HT piece. It showed the hypocrisy of the DT in accusing Media Watch and the ABC of using ‘jihadist’ sources whilst themselves happily indulging Islamist groups like HT. This was the real issue which Blair hasn’t dealt with on his blog or elsewhere.
I dealt with this in the initial item posted. See above.
UPDATE VII. Now one of Irfan’s pals, published in Irf’s moderated comments, claims I’m a “chronic racist” and cocaine fiend who can “only get a job in a cheap 2nd rate newspaper”. My, my. A lawyer let that through?