Topic: TEFLWatch and the Media

[Nemesis]

We have an interesting story and because I like transparency. I am posting this here first, then on the Siam Pinoy site.

Siam Pinoy grabbed an article originally published on TEFLWatch. They posted in their forum with NO  references to TEFLWatch and where they got the article. TEFLWatch stands for Truth and Justice and our reprint rights are very simple, give a link and tell where you got the article from and you can print a TEFLWatch article anywhere. They have yet to fully comply with these requests.

Part of standing up for teachers is being able to have independent reports, factual reports and have them attributable to TEFLWatch. When other organizations or sites steal content, it diminishes the quality of that information since when someone takes the content as their own, they are claiming something that they cannot be verified and can easily be accused of deceit. The label of deceit doesn't may fall on the site that is doing the deceiving, but more than that, it falls upon the information that was stolen. 

This is why we asked that TEFLWatch be attributed to the article so that there is a singular source that you can go back to and a singular source that can verify the accuracy of the story.

A few weeks back, I posted a story about Winston Pedro Bayron and his recruiting efforts. Go back a year ago and I previously posted about his operation, but didn't name names. It was this recent article that was posted on the other site.

A problem has developed. The information has entered the mass media. The article has been reported on several news outlets, including the Philippines Information Agency and GMA News. These articles claim that the information came from Siam Pinoy, not TEFLWatch. I am happy that the information entered the mass media, but I am upset that is has not been attributed to TEFLWatch.

Why? Since it was attributed to another site, and because of the wording of the news article, the news articles are a fabrication. Instead of attacking the source of news, GMA or Siam Pinoy, I am afraid they will attack the information itself. And this is something that hurts teachers all over. I believe that something needs to be truthful and one of the most damaging thing for our profession is for lies to be spread to the mass media.

Siam Pinoy can either help get the truth out there or they can try to pervert the truth for their own gain. My hope is that they can stand on the side of truth.

Or maybe I'm just overreacting. This is why I am posting this here. I want to here what TEFLWatchers think about this, because this site is in service of TEFLers all over the world.

Links Referenced:
http://www.teflwatch.org/306/winston-pedro-bayron/
http://www.teflwatch.org/81/filipino-recruitment-scams/
http://www.pia.gov.ph/?m=12&fi=p070921.htm&no=86
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/60517/Group-warns-of-fake-teaching-job-offers-in-Thailand
http://www.siampinoy.com/forum2/index.php/topic,336.0.html

[defect]

nemesis, i think the SP administrator was very clear that his source was from email, although the real source was your site but when it reach him it was via email and when u requested to put the link he immidietly complied. so i dont see any problem. if it was live link we will change it soon.

if it was quoting the source, in the end it will show that it was you, thats for sure. We are not taking credits for this. just like you, we just want to help especially to our felow Filipinos.

[Nemesis]

He didn't have a source, first off. At best, someone emailed him a copy of the article. That someone copied and pasted the article into an email and sent it to him. That's at best. Since he has copied and pasted an article from TEFLWatch in the past, I can assume that he knows about TEFLWatch and reads about TEFLWatch. I made references in that email to the previous year when I put out a warning. You know that warning was at one point on SiamPinoy, but it was properly credited. If he read what he posted this time, the smart money says he copied and pasted and forgot to put where it came from.

But today I'm kind of slow, so I can buy that he received it through email, if he says so. But even in those cases, you need to properly credit it. It might be as simple as this statement:

I received this article in my email that I felt needed to be shared with my readership. I don't know the original source of it.

That's not claiming ownership and it's clear that it came from an outside source.

On the other hand, merely copying an article and pasting it and not prefacing it with anything to make someone think the source was anyone other than yourself, that's plagiarism. Sure he's finally added an unclickable link to it, but he hasn't made any statement to the effect that he got the got article from that link and he hasn't made it clickable. Because others have misinterpreted his original post as being directly from him, he has a responsibility to make it clear where the article came from. That's all I am asking for.

Unfortunately, I have to also ask the news organizations to correct their entries. Reporters with egg on their face may be less likely to trust anything important coming from SiamPinoy or even TEFLWatch in the future. This is unfortunate and a huge disservice to not only Filipinos teachers in Thailand, but TEFL teachers around the world.

[bomha]

Nemesis, I followed three of the URL's that you posted at the end of your post.  The link to SP clearly lists TEFLWatch as the source, after the fact.  However, their link back to here is broken, and the OP has been banned from that website.  I take it that some of the Filipino media picked up the information before the attribution to TEFLWatch was added.  As they say in the Catskills and the Hebrides, you can't put the bridle on the horse after he's run out of the barn.  Maybe you can ask the media who picked up the story to run a correction, but they won't be motivated.