According to its website, WJW, the Cleveland FOX affiliate, posted a story about a shooting in downtown Cleveland at 3:08 a.m. Friday. A little more than five hours later, the Cleveland Call & Post did the same. Exactly the same.
Here’s the story:
CLEVELAND — Two people were shot following an early morning altercation in downtown Cleveland Friday.
AdvertisementPolice say the shooting occurred around 2 a.m. on Huron Road near the Halle Building.
At least one of the injured was taken to MetroHealth Medical Center in a taxi cab. Both injured are expected to survive.
It is unknown what circumstances led up to the shooting.
Stay with FOX 8 as more details become available.
The only difference? The Call & Post didn’t tell its readers to stay with FOX8.
Bliss Davis, an associate producer at WJW who primarily writes for the web team, told TVSpy the information for her story came directly from a phone conversation she had with police dispatchers. She also took her complaint about the suspiciously similar stories to twitter. You can see her tweet after the jump.
Stealing content without attribution is not cool. Rookie journos esp. take note. @call_post @romenesko @AvQueenBenet pic.twitter.com/H6gjGDTSkh
— Bliss (@_blissdavis) November 4, 2013
A Call & Post spokesperson told TVSpy they were looking into the matter. We will update when we hear back.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of the original stories as tweeted by Davis: