If it weren't for the efforts of two Twitter users known simply as @blippoblappo and @crushingbort, there's no telling when Johnson's flawed work would have been noticed. And if it weren't for Johnson's criticism of another outlet's plagiarism, the duo probably wouldn't have been compelled to trawl through his BuzzFeed archives.But, if we all remember our Official Catechism Of Media Etiquette we'll know that it teaches us all anonymous internet users are inherently evil so guess we'll just have to disregard all of this.
"It was definitely prompted by Johnson tweeting about the IJReview," @crushingbort told TPM in an email on Monday.
After setting up a blog on Wordpress, @crushingbort and @blippoblappo collaborated in exposing multiple instances of plagiarism in Johnson's work, playing a central role in a story that ushered in new scrutiny toward the editorial standards at BuzzFeed — the wildly popular site that, as Politico's Dylan Byers put it last week, "is constantly walking a fine line between aggregation, or 'curation,' and theft."
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Still in all... it lacks decorum
These Bleeping Blort and Flippy Flap guys seem pretty OK to me. They did a useful thing and weren't jerks about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment