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The CO Jones award for message board journalism
By kwin
May 24 2005
If you are a regular on the message boards, have you ever experienced a sense of deja-vu when reading the sports pages? Have you even found your own posting reproduced in the national press?

Have your interview quotes ever been stolen?  Have you ever read a match report from a journalist you just know wasn't at the game?  Do you ever get the impression that a writer has sourced his entire article, sitting on his backside, reading the message boards? 

ComeAllWithin is pleased to announce the establishment of a new, and prestigious award to fight this growing and worrying trend on the sports pages of our national dailies:

The "CO Jones" Award for Message-Board Journalism

Named after The Evening Standard's rugby correspondent, Chris 'O' Jones, a long time sparring partner, reader (and indeed reproducer) of these columns, (Hi Chris!) the CO Jones award celebrates the bravest, clearest and most insouciant examples of paid-for professional copy, sourced from fan websites like this one.

The award - which takes the form of a greasy, but elegant, discarded chip paper - will be presented  in person (if we possibly can) at the end of the season to the journalist with the most blatant, or numerous examples of message-board journalism. Nominations are now open, and all entries will be displayed here, in the hall of fame, in preparation for a vote in May

What are we looking for?  Well, not just any old reproduction of the message board material - No, we're looking for the unacknowledged material posing as original research, the quote written as if heard by journalist himself, the analysis copied from the board and masquerading as the journalists own thoughts. What's become known as the Message-Board-Steal.

Now sometimes journalists quote the boards and acknowledge it For instance here's some recent in depth research on Wasps from none other than Chris Jones himself ('many on the club's chatroom last week...')  This is the acceptable face of MBJ, acknowledging as it does the source. While examples are welcome - they won't win the CO Jones award (although if there's enough of them...).  It's the steals we're after:

Have you seen any examples of message board journalism? Send them to kwin@diamondgeezers.co.uk and get hunting!

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