Credit Is Due

By coincidence, Channel 7 had a followup on the topic scheduled for March 11 (the very day the Rocky piece arrived), saying that to prevent another Martin-like deal, Judge Andrew Armatas had asked other judges to only accept plea bargains in writing from now on rather than considering oral arguments of the sort prosecutor Stone presented on the baller's behalf. The Rocky reported the same thing on March 13, and this time, it credited Channel 7, too — a belated attribution likely motivated by one of several possibilities. Paper reps might have learned about the story from watching TV and decided to sit on it for a while to make it seem as if they'd unearthed the revelation independently; perhaps they got a heads-up from someone at the AP; or maybe someone in editorial read the first comment posted on the March 11 article, which stressed that 7News had gotten there first and included a link to the station's website.

The Associated Press passed on the most recent development, thereby limiting the amount of attention Channel 7 will receive the second time around. Then again, representatives of at least two other stations don't see such credits, or a lack thereof, as being all that significant in the overall scheme of things. Channel 31 news director Brad Remington says failing to get a nod from the Associated Press for every significant story it's broadcast "isn't a burning issue for us." Meanwhile, Channel 2 news director Carl Bilek confirms that he's occasionally phoned the AP to let them know a credit was improperly left out, and he's found the personnel there to be receptive. But unless omissions are particularly egregious, he generally accepts them as a part of journalism's culture.

Not so Ferrugia, who emphasizes that his complaints aren't ego-driven: "It really has nothing to do with John Ferrugia getting his name in the paper," he insists. Instead, he's concerned about maintaining equal status among Associated Press contributors, and he believes that his job becomes harder every time the AP gives props to other news purveyors that Channel 7 deserves. "When a story gets picked up, we start getting more calls from people saying, 'Let me tell you something else about this,'" he allows. "That's how you advance information and move public policy, which is really my interest in terms of being a reporter. And it's not fair for someone to see a story in the paper and call the Rocky because they think they broke it and we're the ones who actually did."