As I said in my tweets on the subject, posting something on Twitter is akin to stepping up to a con panel podium and making a statement. Last I checked, Marvel was calling up comic book sites wondering where their checks were for coverage of the X-Men panel at Heroes Con.

By the way, I’ll ask for permission and pay someone for reposting their Twitter comments when Marvel goes back in time to ask my permission to quote from my review of SPIDER-MAN: REIGN that was taken out of context and pay me a small royalty on the second printings they were using it to advertise. And when they go back and change any current back cover quotes from saying “blah blah blah – NEWSARAMA” to reflect the actual individual they were quoting.

Sound ridiculous? It is. Kinda like the whining from select members of Marvel that spurred this excellent blog post from Lucas.

I’m a reporter myself, and I think if something in a tweet is newsworthy, then it’s reportable. Permission is not needed, just as you wouldn’t need to get permission when someone makes a comment during a public speech. However, it may be prudent before publishing the story on the tweet to get a follow-up from the tweeter (“You said this on your tweet, care to elaborate?”). As Siegal mentioned, a lack of a response or cooperation doesn’t mean the story should be killed.

I do have one bit of concern, something I’ve seen on the main Newsarama site and elsewhere; Kirk just pointed out. While I think it’s perfectly ethical to report on tweets and blog postings from sources or those in an industry you cover (e.g., comic book artists, publishers, etc.), I do think it is not appropriate to rip and post work by other journalists, specifically HollywoodReporter and Variety or AM New York. If they have news you don’t have, then you got scooped and you need to report it yourself by doing the legwork. Simply copying and pasting one of their stories, providing a link and attributing them is not enough – that’s lazy and it’s stealing.

In fact, some organizations can be very protective of their material. Associated Press will sue organizations who do not subscribe to their service but yet still use material from AP’s reporting – even if the organization attributes AP. It’s a copyright issue.

Now, you can certainly blog about what another news organization reported, and link to it, and maybe put some material or quotes from their story up. But that’s not a substitute for your own news story on the same subject, or just simply copying their entire story into your blog.

Of course, this point is moot if you actually do have permission from those news organizations to use their material and reprint their story.

Sorry for long post! Point being that Marvel is overreacting.

Well, when you look at recent history, you can see what Marvel specifically is doing: they’re looking to sell the stories not to websites like this one, but to actual (dying) newspapers, such as what happened with the death of Steve Rogers.

But then, I really wonder if Marvel has a clue among those in charge with all the silliness they throw out there.

I’m reading David Meerman Scott’s book “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” right now. In it, he addresses the issue of press releases, saying that it is more accurate to call them “news releases” today, because that’s who they’re written for and to. (p61)

It’s certainly the way that Marvel uses them with Newsarama and other sites. I doubt it would take either of us more than 60 seconds to find a handful of news releases Marvel gave to Newsarama, which posted them exactly as they were written, with a sentence or two tagged at the end.

Brevoort, Quesada, Bendis are all using Twitter as it’s meant to be used: to interact with others and promote themselves. They each have THOUSANDS of followers, and allow anybody to look at their tweets. Quesada even premiered one of his covers for ASM there didn’t he (I could be wrong about that point).

The point is, they have the opportunity to not use Twitter, or even just make their tweets private. They don’t, because they want to be seen.

So, no, I still don’t see any real difference in what’s said in official news releases from the company and what is said in a twitter account that’s visable to the entire world and used specifically to interact with fans.

Bottom line, Twitter is no different from any other public space. Anything you say is up for grabs.

A press release is designed by the author/organization and is intentionally sent to journalists in order to highlight an event or information related to the author/organization. The information normally contains the who, what, where, when, why and how of the story. It’s meant to encourage journalists to develop an article about the subject.

“What you were doing was basically reappropriating content. That’s not even journalism, there was no context, no analysis of your own or anyone else, it’s just lazy. You didn’t ask any questions, it wasn’t content you were involved in creating.”

How is that quantifiably different from press releases, which Newsarama, CBR, et al are encouraged, if not mandated, to run verbatim?

This is true of virtually all journalism. It is probably the real reason why the newspaper industry is in a rut, as much as they like to pretend it’s for other reasons.

What you were doing was basically reappropriating content. That’s not even journalism, there was no context, no analysis of your own or anyone else, it’s just lazy. You didn’t ask any questions, it wasn’t content you were involved in creating.

that’s what I don’t get either. I mean, the CB thing aside, since he consented to that, and now Brevoort just seems to be conveniently ignoring that so he can go on arguing that he’s right…but Marvel executives put hype and information into a marketing pipeline (which is how they’re using Twitter, for free as someone upstream pointed out), and then they get testy when that material that they put in the marketing pipeline gets picked up and broadcast?

{boggles}

If Marvel doesn’t want that traffic, I’d gladly take it. I’ve got graphic novels to sell.

You can find me on Twitter @ DuskComic

Thanks,
David
http://www.comicspace.com/david_doub/

Especially since Brevoort basically committed libel, didn’t he? He said there wasn’t permission, and there was. Brevoort also insinuates that David Pepose is paid, and Lucas Siegel said on twitter that some of them don’t get paid. It sounds like Brevoort knows a whole lot of nothing here.

Bendis and the rest of the Mini-Marvels Junior Lawyer League might want to talk to some, you know, actual lawyers before they go throwing their weight around about what can and can’t be published on the Internet.

Interesting, well thought out piece. Feel free to link to our Twitter anytime;)

Filip Sablik
Publisher, Top Cow Productions
Read a free issue of Witchblade at http://www.topcow.com/witchblade

In theory, yeah. But have you ever heard of a smaller press actually getting blackballed by the press? I don’t. Maybe Wizard’s done it, but I can’t think of any instances.

The reason to copy and paste segments of related tweets is that Twitter streams are constantly updated, so links to twitter pages and specific topics have a short shelf life.

Take Marvel’s release of the American Son teaser. In what way was that news?

This is not a slam of sites like Newsarama, CBR or Wizard. What they do, they do very well (well, maybe Wizard not so much). But what they do is report what they’re told to report. And that’s promotion, not journalism.

If you want to be treated like a real reporter, act like one. Don’t be Rich Johnstone, be Walter Winchell. Start a news blog, post real stories in spite of company approval (Back it up with real sources).

In any case, as far as these “Tweets” go…if you’ve used the phrase “sense of entitlement” in a rant, no matter how short the rant…you’re probably wrong. And being a dick.

Bendis, Quesada and Brevoort are all putting aside the content people such as the writes at the Newsarama blog write just out of a feeling of superiority. They might as well be saying “we do all the work for you, lazy bums”. I guess the message is the same. High horses much?

So, even if the content of just a couple of posts (that are actual news) is “lazy”, what the hell about the pieces of analysis, comments regarding the industry and general critique? Are those lazy as well?

If the writers themselves (of a medium that has been dissed through the years) can’t even bear the fact that comic journalism, specially in blogs -a way to get the word across the world-, is done like this a lot of the time, then why even bother. I just… sigh.

Are Tweet Rights Lwyers far behind?

http://twitter.com/IntNorbertCon