{"id":56582,"date":"2015-04-20T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T11:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=56582"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:25:50","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:25:50","slug":"the-googlechina-hacking-case-how-many-news-outlets-do-the-original-reporting-on-a-big-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/04\/the-googlechina-hacking-case-how-many-news-outlets-do-the-original-reporting-on-a-big-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Google\/China Hacking Case: How Many News Outlets Do a Original Reporting on a Big Story?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"chinagooglestorycluster<\/a>From 800 news stories researched online about the hacking story, all but 121 were identical, 13 contained at least one personal or unique quote, and just seven represented original journalistic work.<\/em> In other words, 85% of the [800] news articles were <\/em>verbatim rewrites from other journalists whereas only about 1% constituted original stories.<\/em><\/p>\n

24 Feb 2010 – <\/em>We often talk about the new news ecosystem \u2014 the network of traditional outlets, new startups, nonprofits, and individuals who are creating and filtering the news. But how is the work of reporting divvied up among the members of that ecosystem?<\/p>\n

To try to build a datapoint on that question, I chose a single big story<\/a> and read every single version listed on Google News to see who was doing the work. Out of the 121 distinct versions of last week\u2019s story about tracing Google\u2019s recent attackers to two schools in China, 13 (11 percent) included at least some original reporting<\/strong>. And just seven organizations (six percent) really got the full story independently.<\/p>\n

But as usual, things are a little more subtle than that. I chose the Google-China story because it\u2019s complex, international, sensitive, and important. It\u2019s the sort of big story that requires substantial investigative effort, perhaps including inside sources and foreign-language reporting. Call it a stress test for our reporting infrastructure, a real-life worst case.<\/p>\n

The New York Times broke<\/a> the story\u00a0last Thursday, writing that unnamed sources involved in the investigation of last year\u2019s hacking<\/a> of a number of American companies had traced the attacks to a prestigious technical university and a vocational college in mainland China. The article included comment from representatives of the schools and, while it had a San Francisco dateline, credited contributions from Shanghai staff. Immediately, the story was everywhere. Just about every major American newspaper and all the wires covered it.<\/p>\n

When I started investigating the issue on Monday morning, Google News showed 800 different reports. But how many of these reports actually brought new information to light? By default, Google does not display duplicate copies of syndicated (or stolen) content, bringing the total down to more than 100 unique pieces of copy. I read each one, and several hours later, I had a spreadsheet<\/a> recording the sourcing for each story. I also recorded the country of publication, the dateline or contributor location if noted, and the primary publishing medium of each outlet (paper, online, radio, etc.) An excerpt of this data is reproduced in the table below.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I found:<\/p>\n

\u2014 Out of 121 unique stories, 13 (11 percent) contained some amount of original reporting. <\/strong>I counted a story as containing original reporting if it included at least an original quote. From there, things get fuzzy. Several reports, especially the more technical ones, also brought in information from obscure blogs. In some sense they didn\u2019t publish anything new, but I can\u2019t help feeling that these outlets were doing something worthwhile even so. Meanwhile, many newsrooms diligently called up the Chinese schools to hear exactly the same denial, which may not be adding much value.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Only seven stories (six percent) were primarily based on original reporting. <\/strong>These were\u00a0produced by The New York Times<\/a>, The Washington Post<\/a>, the Wall Street Journal<\/a>, The Guardian<\/a>, Tech News World<\/a>, Bloomberg<\/a>, Xinhua<\/a> (China),\u00a0and the Global Times<\/a> (China).<\/p>\n

\u2014 Of the 13 stories with original reporting, eight were produced by outlets that primarily publish on paper, \u00a0four were produced by wire services, and one was produced by a primarily online outlet. <\/strong>For this story, the news really does come from newspapers.<\/p>\n

\u2014 14 reports (12 percent)\u00a0were produced by Chinese outlets, had a China dateline, or mentioned the assistance of staff in China.<\/strong> For a story about China, that seems awfully low to me. Perhaps this has to do with cutbacks<\/a> of foreign correspondents?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Nine reports (7 percent) mentioned no source at all. <\/strong>Five more were partially unsourced. Given the ease of hyperlinks, this frightens me.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Google News tended to rank solid original stories fairly high in its list.<\/strong> Google says<\/a> they rank stories based on criteria such as the reputation of a source, number of references by other articles, and the headline clickthrough rate \u2014 though they won\u2019t reveal exactly how it\u2019s done. The spreadsheet and table below list stories in the order that Google News ranked them.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Google\u2019s story-clustering algorithm<\/a> included three unrelated stories and missed at least one original report.<\/strong> The three extraneous stories were about Google and China, but not about the recent trace. The exclusion of the Financial Times\u2019 excellent\u00a0piece<\/a> is a disappointment \u2014 perhaps this has something to do with their paywall<\/a>? Maybe I\u2019m biased because, as a computer scientist, I appreciate the difficulty of the problem \u2014 but I actually think this means that Google News works remarkably well, for a completely unsupervised algorithm that crawls billions of pages to find millions of stories in dozens of languages.<\/p>\n

\u2014 What were those other 100 reporters doing?<\/strong> When I think of how much human effort when into re-writing those hundred other unique stories that contained no original reporting, I cringe. That\u2019s a huge amount of journalistic effort that could have gone into reporting other deserving stories. Why are we doing this? What are the legal, technical, economic and cultural barriers to simply linking to the best version of each story<\/a> and moving on?<\/p>\n

\u2014 The punchline is that no English-language outlet picked up the original reporting of Chinese-language Qilu Evening News<\/a>, which was even helpfully translated<\/a> by Hong Kong blogger Roland Soong.<\/strong> A Chinese reporter visited one of the schools in question and advanced the story by clarifying that serious hackers were unlikely to have been trained in the vocational computer classes offered there. Soong told me that Lanxiang Vocational School<\/a> is well known in China for their cheesy late-night commercials and low-quality schooling \u2014 more of an educational chop shop for cooks and mechanics than the training ground for military hackers than the Times claims.<\/p>\n

Tracing one story doesn\u2019t prove anything conclusive beyond that one story, of course. And using Google News as a filter doesn\u2019t truly represent the new news ecosystem: It excludes lots of smaller blogs and other outlets. Soong said Google News told him that his site is not eligible for inclusion in their results because they don\u2019t include small blogs written by a single author. This seems like an arbitrary distinction, but it\u2019s hard to imagine what defensible choice Google could make in an era where the definition of a news source is so up for grabs.<\/p>\n

The table below is an extract from the data I collected, with original reporting highlighted. The full spreadsheet<\/a> also includes country of publication, primary medium for each organization, and lists whether or not each story hyperlinked to its sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Article<\/strong><\/td>\nSources<\/strong><\/td>\nDateline<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Calgary Herald<\/a><\/td>\nXinhua, NYT (via AFP)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ABC <\/a><\/td>\nAP, Xinhua<\/td>\nShanghai<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Xinhua<\/a><\/td>\noriginal<\/td>\nShanghai<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MarketWatch<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Xinhua<\/td>\nSan Francisco<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reuters<\/a><\/td>\nXinhua, NYT<\/td>\nShanghai<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
OneIndia<\/a><\/td>\nChina Daily, NYT (via ANI)<\/td>\nBejing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Economic Times<\/a><\/td>\n?<\/td>\nWashington<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PC Magazine Blogs<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Washington Post<\/a><\/td>\noriginal, NYT<\/td>\nBejing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Times Online<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\nWashington<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Information Week<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, original<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
FOX News<\/a><\/td>\nNYT (via AP)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Canadian Press<\/a><\/td>\nNYT (via AP)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Taipei Times<\/a><\/td>\n(via NYT)<\/td>\nSan Francisco<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Register<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Guardian UK, blog<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Inquirer<\/a><\/td>\nAP<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MarketWatch<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\nSan Francisco<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ComputerWorld<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, blog<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Telegraph UK<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PC World<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Xinhua<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Telegraph UK<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\nLos Angeles<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/td>\noriginal, Xinhua, NYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Guardian<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, original<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Business Week<\/a><\/td>\n(Bloomberg)<\/td>\nWashington<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
AFP<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\nNew York<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reuters<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\nNew York<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
New York Times<\/a><\/td>\noriginal<\/td>\nSan Francisco, Shanghai<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Daily Contributor<\/a><\/td>\nPC World<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CCTV<\/a><\/td>\nChina Daily, NYT, original<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Australia Network News<\/a><\/td>\nXinhua, NYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
After Dawn<\/a><\/td>\n?, NYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Top News<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Daily Latest News<\/a><\/td>\n?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Press Trust of India<\/a><\/td>\nChina Daily, NYT<\/td>\nBejing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UPI<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\nNew York<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Security Pro News<\/a><\/td>\n?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Gizmodo<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tom\u2019s Guide<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Digital Media Wire<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\nMountain View<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tech News World<\/a><\/td>\noriginal, NYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Global Times<\/a><\/td>\noriginal, \u201cagencies\u201d<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
io9<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Guardian<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ZD Net<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Benzinga<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fox Business<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CrunchGear<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
AOL News<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Guardian, WSJ<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tech Blorge<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
KLIV<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\nSilicon Valley<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
eWeek<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
TMCnet<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
News.am<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chattabox<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Datamation<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The New New Internet<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IT Pro Portal<\/a><\/td>\nBusiness Week, Telegraph, PC World<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Hill<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Grab Geek Points<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
DBTechno<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\nBoston<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IT Chuiko<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
All Things Digital<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Before It\u2019s News<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
V3<\/a><\/td>\n?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
San Jose Business Journal<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Help Net Security<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Channel Web<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Marketing Pilgrim<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Money Times<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
TG Daily<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Guardian<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ABH News<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, ?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Top News<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, ?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PCR<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Top News<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Daily Finance<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Hacker Journals<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Shuttervoice<\/a><\/td>\n?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Thinq<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Top News<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
New York Magazine<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Venture Beat<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fast Company<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Gather News<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Newser<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NASDAQ<\/a><\/td>\nNYT (via Dow Jones Newswire)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reuters<\/a><\/td>\nXinhua<\/td>\nShanghai<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PC World<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Xinhua<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Herald Sun<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Xnhua (via AFP)<\/td>\nBejing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Hindu<\/a><\/td>\n?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Times of India<\/a><\/td>\n?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Daily Mail<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PC World<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, blogs<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ComputerWorld<\/a><\/td>\nNYT (via IDG)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
News.com.au <\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Globe and Mail<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, original (via Reuters)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9News<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Redmond Pie<\/a><\/td>\nNYT,?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Red Orbit<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
New Public<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sydney Morning Herald<\/a><\/td>\nNYT (via AP)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Gulf Times<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MyNews<\/a><\/td>\nXinhua, NYT (via Indo Asian News)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Zeenews (India)<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Xinhua (via PTI)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Tech Herald<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Guardian<\/td>\nBejing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Web Pro News<\/a><\/td>\nFinancial Tines, NYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Business Insider<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Financial Express<\/a><\/td>\noriginal, NYT (via Bloomberg)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tech Eye<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, ?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CIO<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, WSJ (via IDG)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tech Blorge<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Xinhua<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CNET<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Xinhua<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ZD Net<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Washington Post<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
China Daily<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, original<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bejing News<\/a><\/td>\n?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
What\u2019s on Xiamen<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Xinhua<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NPR<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
San Francisco Chronicle<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Xinhua (via AP)<\/td>\nShanghai<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Cap Times<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, AP, Computer World<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Little About<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, Xinhua (via Indo Asian News)<\/td>\nJinan<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Little About<\/a><\/td>\nNYT, original (via Asian News Intl)<\/td>\nBejing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
San Francisco Chronicle<\/a><\/td>\nNYT (via AP)<\/td>\nSan Francisco<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Portfolio.com<\/a><\/td>\nNYT<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
World Market Media<\/a><\/td>\n?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

Jonathan Stray leads the Overview Project<\/a> for the <\/em>Associated Press, a Knight News Challenge-funded visualization system to help investigative journalists make sense of very large document sets, and teaches computational journalism<\/a> at Columbia University. Formerly he was an interactive editor at the <\/em>Associated Press, a freelance reporter in Hong Kong, and a senior computer scientist at Adobe Systems. He has contributed stories to <\/em>The New York Times, Foreign Policy, Wired and <\/em>China Daily. He has an MSc in computer science from the University of Toronto and an MA in journalism from the University of Hong Kong.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 niemamlab.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From 800 news stories researched online about the hacking story, all but 121 were identical, 13 contained at least one personal or unique quote, and just seven represented original journalistic work. In other words, 85% of the [800] news articles were verbatim rewrites from other journalists whereas only about 1% constituted original stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}