The Guardian: on the side of the humble blogger

There would be few things worse for a serious blogger writing about serious issues than to have your stuff lifted by the dead tree press without attribution.

The indefatigable Dave Hill expressing the indignity so well in his lament in today's Guardian about the fact that the Hackney Gazette has been filching material from his blog without crediting him for it:

So why does the Hackney Gazette think it's clever to treat Hackney bloggers with contempt? Why does it not follow the example of some large, city newspapers in the US and cultivate friendly links, in print and online, with local blogs and community websites, which can generate readers, stories and information they wouldn't otherwise have? Why not regard bloggers as potential "citizen journalist" allies in the battle to win readers rather than as cost-free sources of material to be plundered at leisure then insulted if they dare to complain?

Couldn't have put it better myself. Nor do his strictures just apply to local newspapers and bloggers. On a national level one would certainly hope that Guardian is above that sort of behaviour and that its political editor, say, would not go round borrowing whole chunks of copy and analysis from first rate blogs like, say, Political Betting, without crediting the source.

As I've noted before, that would be unthinkable. If such a thing were to happen, I trust that Dave, with his excellent contacts at the Guardian, would be the first to protest.