Hey Australian journos: have you had your work ripped off by the Daily Mail? We want strong examples to take them on. DM or email: mediawatch@abc.net.au. - Twitter, @abcmediawatch, 30 October, 201

Hello, I’m Paul Barry, welcome to Media Watch.

And that was the call we put out on Twitter last week to find out how many Australian journalists had seen their hard work stolen by the Daily Mail.

And we were buried in an avalanche of anger — with more than 1000 retweets, 2000 likes, and well over 100 replies, like these:

Would be better asking for journos whose work hasn’t been ripped of - Twitter, @morteinmooie, 1 November, 2018

Makes me so mad! We put in hours of work for them to copy, paste, own byline - Twitter, @tarakcassidy, 31 October, 2018

Media Watch's twitter account has crashed after too many Aussie journos supplied evidence of @DailyMailAU stealing their shit. - Twitter, @mattydunn11, 31 October, 2018

The Daily Mail is the fourth most popular news site in Australia, with a monthly audience of more than 6 million people.

And one of its boasts is readers can get all the news there:

COMMENTATOR: … the Daily Mail did an interview with them … - Nine News Now, 17 October, 2018

PETER FORD: … the Daily Mail picked it up. - The Daily Edition, Channel Seven, 5 September, 2018

EM RUSCIANO: So really anything the Daily Mail can write about me and they've written everything… - Studio 10, Channel Ten, 5 September 2018

BEVERLEY O’CONNOR: … published by the Daily Mail … - The World, ABC News Channel, 11 September, 2018

SARAH HARRIS: According to the Daily Mail … - Studio 10, Channel Ten, 25 October 2018

MONIQUE WRIGHT: the Daily Mail reported … - Sunrise, Channel Seven, 17 Oct 2018

JEFFREY SACHS: You read the Daily Mail. JAMES PATTERSON: No, I read the report. I read the report. - Q&A, ABC, 20 October 2018

But according to those who work there – and those who’ve had their stories stolen – that’s because the Mail lifts dozens of stories a day from other sites.

And anyone is fair game. The Age journalist Benjamin Millar told us:

… two significant exclusives I wrote this month - one took weeks of work to bring to publication and one was a pretty major twist in a big news story. Both ripped off within hours. - Benjamin Millar, Email, 31 October, 2018

And a young News Corp reporter Eliza Barr tweeted last week:

I sat in court alone and covered this story. I was repeatedly harassed for several days as a result. It was ripped off by the Daily Mail within hours. I cannot express my disgust and distress at this theft of my work. - Twitter, @ElizaJBarr, 30 October, 2018

Tonight we’re devoting our whole program to this problem.

Because, while all the media steal stories from time to time, the Mail does it on an industrial scale.

And that threatens the future of journalism, because it takes revenue from mastheads that rely on it for their lifeblood.

Fairfax group editor James Chessell told Media Watch if the Mail keeps lifting stories from The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and other Fairfax titles:

JAMES CHESSELL: We will have less money to spend on investigations, we will have less money to spend on public interest journalists, we’ll have, journalism, we’ll have less money to spend on, on holding the powerful to account. - James Chessel, Phone interview, 2 November, 2018

And, says Chessell, there is no sign of it easing off:

… the levels of frustration and anger are as big as they ever, as ever have been … we used to keep a spreadsheet of all the stories that they would rip off and we stopped that after a while basically you know, for our own sanity, it was, it was wearing us down and it was, it was not leading to any positive outcomes. - James Chessel, Phone interview, 2 November, 2018

The Mail takes from everyone. As you can see from this list of people and organisations including the ABC, Nine, News Corp, Fairfax, the New Zealand Herald and a bevy of freelance journalists like Ginger Gorman, who told Media Watch their work has been stolen.

And its kleptomania ranges far and wide.

The Townsville Bulletin tells us it had five stories lifted only last week.

While in Melbourne, Herald Sun editor Damon Johnston tells us he’s used to having court stories stolen on a daily basis:

DAMON JOHNSTON: … they will take it within minutes of us publishing it and not having had anyone in court and often it’s repackaged and republished from someone in Sydney … But they’ll take graphics, they’ll take photos, they’ll take video … - Damon Johnston, Phone call, 2 November, 2018

This graphic is a prime example. It relies on original research and took several days to construct. Only to be copied in its entirety by the Daily Mail.

But what angers the Herald Sun editor most of all is when the Mail lifts an exclusive story, which has involved time, money and risk.

And that’s what happened when reporter Ellen Whinnett travelled to the border of Syria and Turkey in May to file this report:

AUSTRALIA’S most wanted terrorist Neil ­Prakash claims to have fathered at least three children by two jihadi brides while fighting with ­Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. - Herald Sun, 25 May, 2018

The Herald Sun went on to reveal that:

… two children would now be aged about 20 and 21 months. All would be eligible for Australian citizenship. - Herald Sun, 25 May, 2018

And it included a grainy photo of Prakash facing the Turkish court via video link.

And here is the Mail’s version, complete with the same court pic. And the same quotes from Prakash:

'On the first charge of being a member of ISIS, that is true, but the second charge (committing a crime against the state in Turkey), I had nothing to do with,' - Herald Sun, 25 May, 2018 - Daily Mail Australia, 25 May, 2018

Damon Johnston told Media Watch:

DAMON JOHNSTON: She delivered a very good scoop … however within hours of publishing the Daily Mail had not only stolen the story, they’d stolen the headline, the photo and ultimately, our revenue. - Damon Johnston, Phone interview, 2 November, 2018

And how did they do that?

DAMON JOHNSTON: … we had locked that story, so we were charging people to read it online … however theDaily Mail had lifted it and were giving it away for nothing. It’s not just a moral, professional ethical issue here, it’s a commercial one and I think that story if nothing else illustrates the dangers of the Daily Mail’s business model or theft model. - Damon Johnston, Phone interview, 2 November, 2018

The Mail says that what they’re doing is perfectly legal, is no different from the rest of the industry and they produce exclusives of their own.

And to some extent that’s true. The difference is the Mail builds its business on other people’s work and ideas.

We asked executive editor Lachlan Heywood – who worked for News Corp for 20 years – if he’d do an interview with us. But he replied:

Why would I do an interview with Paul Barry when he and the Media Watch team has shown a blatant and clear bias against Daily Mail Australia? - Lachlan Heywood, Email, 2 November, 2018

But in the same email he also told us:

Daily Mail Australia has made a substantial investment in Australia with over 90 journalists and arguably the best trainee scheme in the country. We are continuing to expand while others slash their newsrooms and we don’t hesitate in sending our reporters across Australia or internationally to chase stories. - Lachlan Heywood, Email, 2 November, 2018

However, if you talk to journalists who work for the Daily Mail in Sydney they tell a different story.

As one ex-staffer who worked there for over a year told Media Watch:

… only about three journos in a pool of 20 news journos are tasked with just doing original work. - Ex-Daily Mail Journalist 1, Phone interview, 2 November, 2018

Yes, that is three out of 20. And two other ex-staffers told us much the same.

So what do the rest of them do?

One journalist who applied for a job there says he was told:

… a key part of the job was re-appropriating articles, blogs and posts on sites like Reddit but in a way that couldn't be caught for plagiarism - Twitter Direct Message, Journalist, 2 November, 2018

The Daily Mail says that’s completely wrong and everyone’s expected to do original work. But once again, former staffers tell a different story.

A journalist who worked there for more than a year told us they were expected to write six to eight stories a day, which were typically rips or rewrites. And there was never enough time:

… basically you just get sent links and get told to do a story. Within 45 minutes you get asked, ‘Is this ready?’ I know there’s a lot of errors in rewrites. It’s because they have so little time. - Ex-Daily Mail Journalist 2, Phone interview, 1 November, 2018

And they were given instructions about how to do it, to avoid charges of plagiarism and perhaps to get round the copyright issue:

We were told to link back to the original story within the first three pars. You can only take a certain number of quotes … two to three per story … You’re also told to change the way the first par is written. Change the spin on it, even though sometimes it would change what the story was about! - Ex-Daily Mail Journalist 2, Phone interview, 1 November, 2018

Sometimes, however, the Mail does not change the story at all, and just lifts the copy lock, stock and barrel, as with this one in March from Harrison Tippet at the Geelong Advertiser:

Cr McKiterick’s revelations came amid reports Victoria Police western region Superintendent Craig Gillard was asked to speak to the serving policeman about his views on the rainbow flag dispute. - Geelong Advertiser, 9 March, 2018 - Daily Mail Australia, 9 March, 2018

Other times the Mail rips off its rivals work and ruins it.

When ABC Alice Springs journalist Claire Campbell wrote this story earlier this year, she told us that within hours:

... the Daily Mail lifted the story word for word. - Twitter Direct Message, @clairehcampbell, 29 January, 2018

So she complained. And then it got worse:

When I called them out on it on Twitter … it was re-written but the updated story had the quotes attributed to all the wrong people. - Twitter Direct Message, @clairehcampbell, 29 January, 2018

Other journalists have had the Daily Mail credit the wrong news site, or give them no credit at all.

And sometimes, it’s not just the journalist who ends up feeling aggrieved.

This story in May last year by WA Today reporter Emma Young included a quote from Perth mother Stella Channing, who claimed her life had been destroyed by a vaginal mesh implant:

"Some days, I wake up and don't know why I have bothered waking up. Sometimes I think it would be better if I just didn't.” - WA Today, 8 May, 2017

In stealing that story, the Mail rewrote it to say:

… she was in such agony that she almost killed herself - Daily Mail Australia, 10 May, 2017

Channing told Media Watch angrily:

I did not almost kill myself. It’s just untrue and it wasn’t even reported in the original story. … I have children and grandchildren – it’s not nice for them to hear a false report that their mother has contemplated suicide … It still distresses me. - Stella Channing, Phone interview, 1 November, 2018

So if it makes the media so angry, why do they allow it to happen? And is there in fact anything they can do?

Back in 2014 the editor of The Daily Telegraph, Paul Whittaker, had News Corp fire off an angry letter to the Mail threatening legal action. And in 2015, in another burst of outrage, News Corp did it again.

But it never got to court, perhaps because what the Mail is doing may actually be legal, as the Mail claims.

The key is the fair dealing provision in the Copyright Act, which says you can copy someone else’s news story if you make sufficient acknowledgement.

Which is why the Mail credits the author and links to the original.

So that is one obstacle. The second is the law says you have to sue on individual cases, one at a time.

And as intellectual property expert Dr Kathy Bowrey told Media Watch:

… the value of litigating for any individual work is probably not worth it. - Dr Kathy Bowrey, Phone interview, 2 November, 2018

Adding:

[The Daily Mail] is abusing the spirit of the Copyright Act, and relying on the fact that it’s not worth litigating over individual infringements. - Dr Kathy Bowrey, Phone interview, 2 November, 2018

Another problem is that the law is not very clear on what is fair. And no one seems keen to clarify it or toughen it up.

As Bowrey told Media Watch:

There have been endless reviews into the Copyright Act – an Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry, a Productivity Commission report - both which recommended we amend the current fair dealing provisions … If that happened, I suspect those provisions would lead to a very clear and strong case that the Daily Mail is abusing those provisions. But most media outlets have resisted fairness being clarified. - Dr Kathy Bowrey, Phone interview, 2 November, 2018

And why is that, I hear you ask? Because all organisations like to pinch other people’s stories from time to time and don’t want the law to stop them.

However, Damon Johnston suggests that maybe it’s time to bite the bullet:

DAMON JOHNSTON: The wholesale theft of journalism continues on a daily basis, an hourly basis. I think the time is approaching where as an industry we need to take a stance, and it’s a combination of legal and public pressure I would imagine. - Damon Johnston, Phone interview, 2 November, 2018

In the meantime the media and individual reporters can only resort to shaming the Mail on social media.

And as that noise gets louder and angrier, how do the young reporters who do the Mail’s bidding cope with the abuse? One young woman told us:

People there don’t want to steal other’s work, they hate it with a passion. But if you’re a young journalist and you’re told to get a story up in half an hour, that’s what you do. - Ex-Daily Mail Journalist 2, Phone call, 1 November, 2018

Another young journalist, who copped days of attacks on social media after ripping off a long feature story at the editors’ insistence, told Media Watch:

When I left, I was fucking relieved. - Ex-Daily Mail Journalist 1, Phone interview, 2 November, 2018

While yet another confessed:

You had absolutely no control on what your name would be attached to … I left, and many people I know left, with bad anxiety. - Ex-Daily Mail Journalist 3, Phone interview, 2 November, 2018

So, if shaming and legal threats haven’t yet brought change, is there anything that can?

Possibly, is the answer.

To get traffic to its website the Mail relies heavily on content aggregators like Facebook and Google, which often promote and distribute its rip-off journalism at the expense of the original source.

Last year, The Australian’s business reporter Damon Kitney secured a rare chat with casino magnate James Packer, flying to his ranch in Argentina to compile this 5000-word October cover story:

In this interview with The Weekend Australian Magazine he reveals for the first time the financial and psychological scars of the debt crisis he faced after borrowing big … - The Weekend Australian, 21 October, 2017

It was a blockbuster, with failed business deals, the break-up with Mariah Carey and Packer’s troubles in Israel, China and Hollywood.

But only two hours after the story went online at midnight – and before the magazine even hit the streets – the Mail had all the juiciest details online, with help from its team in New York.

And Google then promoted it, branding the Mail’s rip-off as “highly cited” and pushing it above The Australian in search results, thus robbing the Oz of the opportunity to sign up new paying customers.

As an angry Nicholas Gray, The Australian’s CEO, told Media Watch:

Had the Daily Mail been delisted for their rip-off of our James Packer exclusive, The Australian would have generated more subscriptions, which would have enabled more investment back into journalism. - Nicholas Gray, Email, 2 November, 2018

Ranking a lifted story lower than the original genuine version is one way Facebook and Google, which provide half the traffic to most news sites, could support original journalism.

And in its lengthy submission to the ACCC inquiry into digital platforms, News Corp suggests:

… an Algorithm Review Board to analyse and remedy algorithmic distortions of competition … - News Corp Australia, submission to the ACCC, 20 April, 2018

That board could, for example, force Google to downgrade the Mail and others who rip off proper investigative journalism.

Gray told Media Watch:

Google are brilliant innovators who can make cars drive themselves, so they should be capable of listing the original source of a story, with an appropriate label, at the top of their algorithmically generated results, and demote or better still delist the blatant copycats and churnalists. - Nicholas Gray, Email, 2 November, 2018

But will anybody make them do it?

It seems somewhat unlikely, and the ACCC told us it won’t make any comment until its report comes out.

As for Google, it clearly has no intention of changing its ways, telling the ACCC:

Google does not rank news sites based on their business model. - Google, submission to the ACCC, 19 October, 2018

And adding:

… the proposal is unnecessary and raises the potential for abuse and undesirable outcomes for stakeholders including users, publishers and platforms. - Google, submission to the ACCC, 19 October, 2018

But something certainly needs to be done.

And getting Google and Facebook to reward original work rather than those who steal it would be a great start.

What we also need to do is to redefine fair dealing, so that persistent and systematic copying or use of other people’s stories is defined as unfair.

And the media need to get behind making that change.

There is, of course, another answer: the Mail could do what it says it does and behave like the rest of the media and invest in its own journalism instead of ripping off other people’s.

Read the email from the Daily Mail Australia