Marcus Carab points us to a rather horrifying story about a family suing a funeral home after the funeral home put their grandmother’s brain in a bag of personal effects and sent it to them. Yikes. But, ignore the story itself for a moment (if you can). What was interesting from our point of view was that the story was written by the Associated Press, and it’s basically a rewrite of a story from The Albuquerque Journal. Here’s how the AP points this out:
The Albuquerque Journal reported on the lawsuit in a copyright story published Wednesday.
Now, there are a few things odd about this. First… it’s an odd phrase to use: “in a copyright story.” Nearly all news stories are covered by copyright, so why even mention it?
But what I find even more amusing is that if you look at the AP report, it’s basically just a quick blurb rewrite of the Albuquerque Journal story. It’s only 125 words, and just summarizes what the other paper wrote. Why is that amusing? Because that’s exactly what the Associated Press has been claiming bloggers unfairly do to it — insisting that others simply rewriting its stories in short blurbs are violating the “hot news” doctrine. Apparently, that doesn’t apply when the AP does it itself?
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