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Copying is often a sign of flattery. It's a form of a compliment. However, when grassroots work is copied by large well funded organizations, we are in a different territory.
Today (3/24/23), our friends with the Firearms Policy Coalition sent out this tweet:
Upon opening the Marshall Project link, it looked very similar. Like....it has been written before.....by US! In 2021, we published some never before seen research that detailed the history of the FOID card dating back to the 1960's (which is more in-depth than the Marshall Project's article). Click below to read it.
Now fast forward to two weeks ago as of this article's publish date (3/24/23). An Illinois firearms instructor did a video on our article and sourced us/gave us credit for the info. Here's that link/video.
"I tried to find that info for years, but never knew where to look. You guys saved me countless hours", Alpha Koncepts said. Now fast forward to today and the Marshall Projects article.
When the article touches on the FOID card, it is clear that our article was viewed, right down to the way we including the long forgotten (before our article) newspaper clippings. I mean, take a look.
Our of our 2021 article:
2023 Marshall Project article:
Ours from 2021:
Theirs:
Our thumbnail image:
Theirs:
Amazing, isn't it?!??!?!?!? Now let's look at the Marshall Project's author:
Wait, what? The Trace? You mean, she is an alumni of Everytown's media arm?!?!?
The Trace is a left-of-center gun control news and journalism website created in 2015 with startup funding from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, a left-of-center gun control advocacy group, and the Joyce Foundation. The Trace is a project of Trace Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
If you wanna look further, John Feinblatt is Trace Media's president, and he's also the president of Everytown.
Here's Lakeidra's previous stuff w/Trace Media as well. She wrote for them quite a bit.
Look, if you're gonna take stuff from another article, source it. It's the proper thing to do. We can't all be Bloomberg funded (or former) journalists, and asking for a proper sourcing isn't too much to ask, especially because we aren't making $$ doing the work we do. It's journalistic integrity to give credit if you're gonna use ORIGINAL material for your stuff and expand on it. Better yet, maybe us unpaid journalists are more original at times than the paid ones LOL.
Look at the bright side: at least when they copy from you, you can be sure that part isn't a lie.