What Originality by Tony Paul and the Detroit News!

So, when I saw this post I headed over to detnews.com to read Paul’s columns.

Oh sweet Jeebus in the Manger, it’s like apples and carp poison. Kurt was first and infinitely better. Hmmm….I may have to write a little something in the “Comments” over at the News.

Noticed the News’ last night with the exhaustive list of DD’s moves and wondered if they got the idea from Kurt’s notable, less but more in depth, moves posts. Both interested me, but Kurt’s was obviously more thought provoking.

Not much to cover with the Tigers these days and it’s no secret DD is under the most scrutiny going into Winter Meetings, especially with his deadline fails & and all the bad contracts. I think the posts are fairly different (with Kurt’s being MUCH better). I’d say it might be worth mentioning to the News editors, just to make sure they didn’t hijack the idea. If they got the idea to run multiple posts on DD from Kurt I don’t have a problem with them doing it, as much as I do with them not crediting him at the beginning of each piece. If I were Kurt, though, I’d be very appreciative of you lookin’ out, Ian.

and wondered if Kurt maybe had contributed his stuff to them – which obviously isn’t the case! WTF.

Without even looking I knew Kurt’s would be better written. It did make me pause. I’m curious if Kurt has a line on this.

Like I’ve said in the past. I am not a newbie to the newspaper business. It was my career. And during that career, I’ve watched as the Detroit Free Press blatantly stole a story that I wrote for my newspaper, including using details that they only could have gotten by being boots on the ground up here. I’ve written as a correspondent for the News, too, and would not do so again based on that experience.

As a blogger, I am used to seeing ideas fellow bloggers or myself write be put forward in the media. I generally just shrug it off. I’ve seen my analysis inspired interview questions, notebook pieces, etc. Sure it would be nice of journalists cited blogs for unique content, but we’ve seen they’re not very good at citing other journalists, so it’s no surprise. I’m never offended by it and I take no sides in the Internet vs. Traditional Media fight, because I’ve been on both sides of the great divide.

I am more or less just doing that now. I knew when I started the series it would end up in the media in some form or other. So I wasn’t surprised when it did. Surprised it was a bit blatant, sure. But not surprised. I did not write the series to be exclusive content, I wrote the series to be informative. And I hope I succeeded on that mark. Mr. Paul did have a lot of similar items but he at least sought ways to differentiate himself by looking in other directions.

It would go a long way if the media would just acknowledge its sources better. I cited several places up front that went into my research. Three fellow blogs, Baseball-Reference, Fangraphs, Scout.com’s Tigers coverage, ESPN.com and Cot’s Baseball Contracts. The News cited how many sources for all their transactions, stats and figures?

People can come to their own conclusions as to what they think. I appreciate all the support readers have given the series.

I’m not sure if I’m gonna bother with the News.

This would have been a lot less funny if Kurt’s had been so much better. Since it clearly was, this is just hilarious. You keep chasin’ that carrot, DetNews!