Regular visitors to Zelo Street will know that news stories move in occasionally mysterious ways. Sometimes one can pass hours of harmless fun figuring out who got the original, observing the spin applied by a variety of agenda driven players, and that the Express leads the pack in getting stories a day late.
Most day-to-day news items come off the PA wire, and are written up with a variety of originality: some papers just churn the copy. Other content may come from press releases, and this too is routinely churned over. But over at the bear pit that is Telegraph blogland, tiresome hack Christina Odone has invented another route for news, as she attempts to pull a fast one with her readers.
Odone is pushing the idea that the BBC – note, not ITN or Sky News (“first for breaking wind”) – is cribbing its copy from the papers. This is weapons grade drivel of the finest kind. But then, she works for the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), yet another right leaning lobby group, which, like the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance, operates out of 57 Tufton Street, SW1.
Lots of righteous righties in residence
And we all know what the CPS thinks of the BBC: they have proposed stripping the Corporation down to an operation featuring one TV channel and one radio station. So kicking the Beeb is de rigueur for the CPS. There is, however, one problem with Odone publishing her knocking copy in the Telegraph.
That paper has no room to call out anyone for nicking copy from rivals: the Colin Atkinson palm cross story they pinched from the Daily Mail, and likewise the dismissal by South West Trains of ticket clerk Ian Faletto. And today has brought the most blatant lifting of someone else’s material, as the Manchester Evening News story on the BBC’s swivel chairs at its new Media City HQ was lifted directly by a number of titles – including the Telegraph.
So, Ms Odone, next time you want to get tough on the lifting and churning of copy, you know where to start: the title that hosts your blog.
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