Today’s front page story in the Toronto Star directly rips off research from this web site without attribution. While I am heartened that the Star considers the work presented here as worthy of attention, I am disappointed that the Star does not recognize the legitimacy of my work and my intellectual property by acknowledging their source. I would welcome comments here from John Spears or his editors at the Star.

Here are two other examples of the Toronto Star using research from this web site without attribution.

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Postscript

Reply from John Spears Monday Jan 30 9:45am:

Gee whiz, Tom.

I guess I should read your blog more assiduously. It’s Monday morning, and I’m just seeing your post for the first time.

I was aware of your piece on the hydro cars, but since I mentioned it only in passing in my story I didn’t think to credit you. Perhaps I should have. My apologies.

As for the focus on the story, which was the bonuses, I was simply not aware that you had written about this. I long ago learned that just because you publish something, it doesn’t mean everyone has read it. Moreover, just because one person writes something doesn’t mean no one else can. In fact, it’s a staple of journalism to match the other guy.  

In this case I wasn’t consciously matching you. I just thought Copeland’s statement about not meeting reliability targets for five years raised the question about bonuses. I had some other things going and it took me a couple of days to get around to doing it — to add up the numbers (I can show you my chicken scratches if you want) and to get Copeland to talk about it.  

If you went through the same exercise before I did, then well done. I simply hadn’t seen it.

But for you to get righteous and huffy about this as a matter of journalistic integrity is simply laughable.  

Regards,

John