802 Online

Bill and Emily are getting married and of course Bill announced it on his blog.

Writes the intrepid Candleblogger: "We'll be starting a web site for details and probably a blog as wellwhen things start happening. I'll post here when that happens."

So much for those engagement announcements in the newspaper. Congrats!

Well, as you've probably noticed, 802 Online has its first non-Seven Days ad up in the right-hand corner of the site... not sure I like that placement, but not sure I don't.

The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies created a Blog Ads account for its member-papers with blogs, and we joined in. The way I understand it, anybody can place ads through this service on any of the blogs run by AAN's member papers. For a list of those sites, see altweeklies.com. Scroll down — it's in the left-hand sidebar.

My first advertiser is N. Todd Pritsky, of Dohiyi Mir, and his photographer friends. They take some wicked good pictures they'd like to sell you. I won't make it a practice of promoting my ads in my blog posts, but I wanted to raise this as a topic of conversation, because I've heard some people voice opposition to having ads here, and I wanted to give folks a chance to sound off in the comments.

Also I wanted to give these folks some more exposure, since the ad's links don't seem to be working... hmmm. We'll have to work out the kinks. Clicking on the pic in the upper right-hand corner should take you to Winding Roads Visual Arts. Thanks, N. Todd and friends, for your support.

UPDATE: Looks like the ad link is fixed.

I was on Vermont Public Radio's Vermont Edition program this afternoon, with Philip Baruth of Vermont Daily Briefing. The MP3 file is available via the above link if you missed the show and want to listen. Our part starts at 12:15ish and goes until 12:45.

If you're a VPR listener who has just clicked over to my blog, welcome! If you're a Vermonter with a blog of your own, and you'd like it included on my blogroll, please email me at [email protected]. Thanks for visiting.

This morning I discovered that Burlington resident Matt Mahoney of the ExploreNewEngland Vermont Blog was stealing content from Seven Days and posting it as his own. I just got off the phone with Ron Agrella, Features Content Manager for Boston.com, who apologized for Mahoney's behavior. "As of a few minutes ago, he no longer works for us," said Agrella.

Mahoney was one of six bloggers who contribute to state-specific sitesaffiliated with ExploreNewEngland.com, an online media venture owned by the BostonGlobe and the New York Times. "We use non-journalists for ourbloggers," explained Agrella.

Agrella said that all of ExploreNewEngland's bloggers are independent contractors, who are expected to understand that plagairism plagiarism is unacceptable. He said that the bloggers are supposed toscan the web and the news for interesting events, then blog about them, citing sources when appropriate.

Agrella was "surprised" to hear ofMahoney's actions — we found at least five instances in which Mahoney had reprinted images and text from our paper verbatim on his blog without citing us as the source. When he spoke to Mahoney to terminate his contract, Mahoney revealed that there were other posts of this nature on his blog. As a result, the company has removed all of the posts. If you click on the site now, you'll find a message saying that ExploreNewEngland has discontinued the blog until further notice. There is no mention of Mahoney's plagairism plagiarism on the site.

It's worth mentioning that we don't object to bloggers using our content; we love it! Just cite us as the source. Passing off someone else's work as your own is dishonest and unethical. It undermines readers' trust, and that's bad for all of us.

UPDATE; The blog has been taken down, but calendar writer Meghan Dewald, who wrote the material in question, tracked down the Google cache and archived it at Ma.gnolia here. The stuff from Seven Days includes posts about the Peking Acrobats, Moulin Rouge, the Tuskegee Airmen, the Bird's Eye viewing, and the Men at Work tap dancing troupe.

UPDATE II: My esteemed editor Pamela Polston points out that I've misspelled "plagiarism." Ha! Oh, the hazards of the blogosphere. My apologies.
 

Anybody know Matt Mahoney? His bio on the Explore New England Vermont blog says he's a Burlington resident who works as a banker. Well, he's also a plagairist.

I was just reading through some of the sites on my blogroll, and clicked on his. His latest post, from March 9, is about the Peking Acrobats show at the Flynn:

France has its mimes, and Italy its Harlequin shows, but China'spedestrian art relies more on muscles than make-up. Its 2000-year-oldstreet-performance tradition is rooted in acrobatics, a genre woventhroughout the country's art and culture. This week, the PekingAcrobats return to Burlington's Flynn Theatre with a theatricalshowcase of wire walking, trick cycling and precision gymnastics.Dressed in elaborate costumes, the elite co-ed touring troupe stretchesthe limits of physical possibility, with T'ai Chi-style control. Seebodies balance in complicated symmetrical formations, perch perilouslyon a ceiling-high stack of chairs, flourish fans, or simultaneouslyspin ceramic plates on thin bamboo rods. A live orchestra featuringtraditional Chinese instruments accompanies the jaw-dropping action.

Friday, March 10, Flynn MainStage, Burlington, 8 p.m. $20-32. Info, 863-5966.

Look familiar to anyone? If so, that's because this was a calendar spotlight in last week's Seven Days, written by our calendar writer, Meghan Dewald. Mahoney lifted it verbatim from our newspaper and didn't bother to cite us or link to us or mention that it's not his work.

I might not make such a big deal out of it, except that Mahoney is blogging for Explore New England, which, according to his blog, is "a joint adventure from The Boston Globe and Boston.com."

In other words, a correspondent for a news organization run by the Boston Globe just stole material from Seven Days and passed it off as his own. What the hell?

UPDATE: I told Meghan about this, and she took a look at the guy's blog. Turns out this is not the only spotlight he's stolen. On the main page alone, he's posted our spotlights for Moulin Rouge, the Tuskegee Airmen, the Men at Work tap dancing troupe, and the Bird's Eye viewing. So what else has he been stealing? This is outrageous!

I've been having a blast using Flickr to post photos of my new bambino. This photo-sharing site is free (though you can get a paid account), and it lets you show your photos to anybody who can visit the website. It also allows comments, and has other nifty features that I haven't discovered yet.

There were several folks who used flickr photo sets to display pictures of town meetings last week, which I linked to in the post below. Here's another example of fun with Flickr — Jessamyn  West, of Abada Abada and librarian.net snapped this shot of the chalkboard in front of the new cafe opening soon in her hometown of Bethel. Its Flickr entry shows the photo and comments. Cool. 

Read what Murdoch has to say about how newspapers should evolve in the digital age. From a London speech, March 12, as reported in the London Times Online:

Mr Murdoch said: "Crucially, newspapers must givereaders a choice of accessing their journalism in the pages of thepaper, or on websites such as Times Online or — and this is important — on any platform that appeals to them, mobile phones, hand-held devices, iPods, whatever".

The new consumer trends also mean that power wasshifting, away from "the old elite in our industry — the editors, thechief executives, and let’s face it, the proprietors" and towards a"new media audience" who are using the internet and new technology "toinform, entertain and above all to educate themselves".

And:

But the overall message was positive, with Mr Murdocharguing that "we must have what those great seafaring explorers had inabundance: the courage to use technological change that is unfoldingaround us to help make a better world".

Love him or hate him, don't you think the old codger's onto something? Make whatever conclusions you like about how this relates to allowing bloggers to ask questions at governor's press conferences.

I usually spend my Mondays hunched over my computer here at the Seven Days office, and today is no exception. Actually, it's a little bit of an exception, because I just turned in all my work, and it's not even 3 o'clock yet. Yay! Also an exceptional day because my one-month-old son had a rough night, which means I did too. Got just three hours of sleep. Yikes! Here's a picture of the little guy all bundled up as he and his other mom get ready to drive me to work.

Some links to keep you busy while I recover from my severe sleep deprivation:

• Remember last year, when this blogger made it into the White House press conferences? He grew up in VT, fyi. His dad is with the Vermont AP.
• My friend Ita's speech to activists at an International Women's Day peace march and rally. Ita and her partner are also having a baby, hence the name of her blog.
• She does cool comics. So why is she on hiatus? Join me in asking her to return.
• Another Vermont journalist blogger.
• Bill from Candleblog is at South By Southwest.
• New blog from the Stowe Reporter devoted to "Coverage and Commentary of the Ski Bum Series." If you're into that sort of thing...
• What's old Ernesto Burden up to these days? The former New Media Manager for the Rutland Herald/Times Argus moved to NH a few months back and now look what he's doing. Guess where he got that brilliant idea...

UPDATE: I left out Philip Baruth's lovely little Obama/Sanders exchange from Vermont Daily Briefing:
* Obama, riffing on all of the reasons to put Berniein the Senate: “He’s not one of these guys who goes up there to ridearound in limousines, or eat fancy steak dinners. Or buy expensivesuits. [Takes a long look back at Bernie] You know that’s nota problem in Bernie’s case. [Chuckles] Where’d you get that suit,Bernie? [Chuckles again, nods his head] Right off the rack.”

Just one entry for you today.

Food Stamp Mamas is written by a  food stamp mama in Burlington. From last Monday's post, entitled "I survived school vacation:"

Onlyone more day to go of school vacation, yippppeeee. I love spending timewith the big boy it is really rewarding for the most part althoughabout 85% of the time we spend arguing about anything he can find to beargumentitive about. Right now for example he is really pissed becauseI won't take $ out of the bank to buy him a new toy because he's bored.hhmmm...

Should she be allowed to ask questions at the governor's press conference? There's a question for you. How might that change what gets said?

Burlington Free Press has an article today. UPDATE: I just noticed that half of it is mysteriously missing...

And... anybody have stuff for me to talk about on VPR this week? Speak up.