Alexander Cockburn on Daniel Pearl

[Bradford DeLong]

>Hi,
>
>Primary sources are better, but with deadline pressure, sometimes
>the secondary source is what you have. The slogan in journalism
>being "Go with what you got." But I agree with Brad that it is
>better, then, to say "X,quoted by Y in." But editors often hate any
>inline citation in articles.
>
>In our Z Magazine workshops for lefty journalists, Holly Sklar and I
>argue that fighting for inline citation in articles is important for
>3 reasons:
>
>1) It's the ethical thing to do.
>2) It rebuts the guru syndrome whereby famous writers imply they are
>omniscient.
>3) It increases the diversity of voices in public discourse.

Not to mention...

4) If you say when you got it from somebody else's reference, people 
are more likely to believe that you did the legwork in the other 
cases where you don't do an inline cite, and so you come out even.

5) People whose work you rip off in this way are likely to read your 
stuff, and to remember what you did for a *very* *long* *time*...

Brad DeLong