Casey Seilor and monkey feces

Casey has an item today about some WSJ reporter who tweeted an inaccurate quote about Hillary Clinton which was then retweeted by a host of other tweeters, Casey included, until Casey pointed out the WSJ reporters error.  A big attaboy for that shining example of journalistic ethics by Casey.

Now it's no secret that Casey and I do not get along.  He is fixated on my lack of punctuation and I am fixated on his lack of talent as a reporter.  But this classic Casey piece where he takes the journalistic high ground, trying to make others feel inferior while reporting nothing of substance set off a bell in my head. 

Didn't Casey write something last week about JJOKE that sounded familiar?

So I went back and checked.  Casey reported on a JJOKE press release announcing midyear lobby data.  The JJOKE press release contained the following original material.

"As of June 30, 2015, there were 5,602 individual lobbyists reported on lobbyist registrations in New York State, representing 3,448 clients.

Of the approximately $131 million in total lobbying spending for January through June of 2015, approximately $101 million was spent on compensation to retained and in-house lobbyists, and $30 million in advertising, events, and other expenses. The top 10 professional lobbying firms received more than $35.3 million in total compensation and reimbursed expenses, led by Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, LLP, which received $5.5 million. The largest amount paid by a single client to a lobbyist was $531,000, which was paid by the French outdoor advertising company JCDecaux North America to Greenberg Traurig, LLP."

Casey's report was written as follows WITHOUT quotations:

Of the approximately $131 million in total lobbying spending for January through June of 2015, approximately $101 million was spent on compensation to retained and in-house lobbyists, and $30 million in advertising, events, and other expenses.

As of June 30, 2015, there were 5,602 individual lobbyists reported on lobbyist registrations in New York State, representing 3,448 clients.

The top 10 professional lobbying firms received more than $35.3 million in total compensation and reimbursed expenses, led by Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, LLP, which received $5.5 million. The largest amount paid by a single client to a lobbyist was $531,000, which was paid by the French outdoor advertising company JCDecaux North America to Greenberg Traurig, LLP.

As you can clearly see Casey did no original writing, he merely moved one sentence from the press release to the middle of his non original piece.

That is at a minimum about as lazy as you can get, at it's worst it is plagiarism, which should be a firing offense even at the Times Union.

Hey Casey maybe that monkey shit reporting works when you are in Burlington Vermont writing reviews of High School musicals, but when you cover JJOKE you need to at least use quotations.

And I'm the one that's comma challenged?

It's the people stupid!

UPDATE

A quick google search on plagiarism and press releases found the following:

"the Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication:
“A good reporter will use the press release as a starting point, going on to do his own reporting and gathering his own quotes. If you do use information from a press release, however, the rules of attribution apply.”"

That by the way is from an article in PRSAY titled "Of Press Releases and Plagiarism

Posted by Gerard Corbett in July 20th 2012"

 

Is that the proper way to use quotes Casey?