A professional journalist plagiarising. Really?!

(Published on the Runcorn and Widnes Weekly News website)

Going on placement as a trainee you're never sure if your work is going to be up to scratch, it's hard to know what the publication is expecting from you. I suppose it is a compliment rather than an insult that Mark Smith has published my article under his byline but doesn't help my feeling that what he has done is fundamentally wrong.


Click here to see the article I wrote the day before for the Liverpool Echo.


As you can see the article above is identical, except for the fact it has the word Widnes instead of Merseyside (which is in fact false as the band are from Runcorn and West Derby too, only of the band members is from Widnes).


I understand the newspapers are all part of the Trinity Mirror group and therefore have access to each others articles. However when I went for a work placement with the Echo last summer, as a student journalist, I certainly did not expect what was a page three lead to be lifted and attributed to somebody else.


Plagiarising is a risky thing to do at any point in your life, but when you are a professional journalist it's just down right idiotic.


I've emailed two editors at R&W Weekly News to no avail... I'd like some advice from any journalist that has faced this problem before.

Liverpool band to record for Twilight Saga

MERSEYSIDE band are to record a song for hit vampire saga Twilight.
Electo-pop band Holice have been asked by Twilight music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas to write and record a track especially for Breaking Dawn, the fourth film in the series.
After hearing the last track on Holice’s debut album ‘10 Chakras’, Alexandra Pasavas, 42, from Chicago who has been responsible for both soundtracks in the Twilight Saga so far, got in touch with the Liverpool band and asked them to provide a demo track for the Breaking Dawn film.
They will follow in the footsteps of UK musicians such as Muse and Thom Yorke who have also recorded songs for the Twilight Saga.
Band members Stephen Davies, 39, from Widnes, Chris Oakly, 36, from Runcorn and Sarah Owen, 23 from West Derby, started recording as Holice in 2008.
Stephen said: “We sent the record off and within two weeks we’d heard back.
“The film has quite forward thinking directors who seem to be making a deliberate effort to help smaller unsigned bands”.
Stephen’s kitchen in Widnes doubles up as the inevitably named Kitchen Studio’s, where Holice recorded their demo track.
He said: “Although they liked the song they wanted us to write something specifically for the soundtrack ”.
Preparation is underway for songwriter Stephen, he said: “I’m frantically watching all the films and reading Breaking Dawn just to get a good feel for it”.
He has started writing the track, but told the Liverpool Echo that there is no name for it yet.
“We’re planning on making it quite slow and moody, I’ll be listening to the other soundtracks to try and pick up on the rough tone, but we don’t want to copy anybody else's style”.
The band are excited to get their teeth stuck into the challenge, they are aiming to have the track recorded and sent off by August.
The third film Twilight Eclipse is set to be a hit in cinema’s next month, but it will be 2011 before Holice make it onto the big screen.
Holice’s debut album 10 Chakras is available to download on iTunes.