ABSTRACT
Professional journalists rate investigating, fact checking, and standards of accuracy, high, among the qualities that set them apart from amateurs and bloggers (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2001; Fenton and Witschge, 2010). Paradoxically, however, borrowing material from other journalists, un-attributed, and usually un-verifi ed, is common practice. A ‘cuttings job’ may be a simple re-hash of old material with a new introduction, or it may be an elaborate patchwork of quotes from a variety of sources. In either case, the originators are rarely credited. Often the excuse given is that there is no room for elaborate referencing or that such referencing is a turn-off for readers.
