[ASC-list] Tracking lazy journalism

[Charles Willock]

... following a post on the Forensic Linguistics list ...

The Media Standards Trust has launched a website to sniff out journalists
who cut and paste press releases:

  http://mediastandardstrust.org/blog/ladies-and-gentleman-please-start-your-churn-engines/
  http://churnalism.com/

FWIW, their 15 character minimum requirement isn't sufficient to guarantee 
tracking uniqueness, but with a little care, searching for a slightly 
longer string -- especially one containing a relatively low-frequency word
(play with Google to determine which are low frequency strings **) should be
quite fruitful.

Not sure how extensive their search is yet ...

HtH,
Charlesw


** - Olsson J [2004], 'Forensic Linguistics' Continuum.  (Ch.8 Plagiarism)


      "Creativity and innovation are measured not by what is done, 
           but by what could have been done ... but wasn't"

Disclaimer: http://www.eng.unsw.edu.au/emaildis.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Willock                                 charlesw at cse.unsw.edu.au
c/- School of Computer Science and Engineering       
University of New South Wales,                  
New South Wales  Australia  2052    http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~charlesw