Mainstream Media Fails

Telegram’s Samantha Allen’s Blatant Ripoff Of Our Firefighters 6K Story Is The Most Ironic Thing Ever Done

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Everyone knows the Telegram and Gazette is a joke. But today, they crossed the line into just plain sad, when this woman

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one Samantha Allen, did the unthinkable. As you all know by now, we broke this story the other day about a local woman named Theresa Pickens, who cut the course at the Worcester Firefighters 6K in Worcester. We found this out by doing actual research.

Allow me to explain.

We got ONE message from someone who ran the race and saw this happen. But we wanted more than just one witness. So what did we do? We went through the race results and tried contacting anyone on Facebook who finished close to her time. We heard back from three more people. All confirmed that this woman had in fact cut the course.

But that wasn’t enough. We wanted to prove that she hadn’t run this type of pace (6:00 miles) every before. So we researched all of her non-existent times and compared them to the women she finished ahead of.

Finally we went and found a website that had pictures of every single person who crossed the finish line, to see if anyone matching the description of the alleged cheater crossed the line 16th overall. Indeed she did.

That’s how research works. Ironically one of the most common complaints you see from butthurt losers who don’t like Turtleboy is that WE don’t have any journalistic integrity. If I had a penny for every time some nudnik wrote in the comments that we should get our act together if we wanted to “make it” in this biz, we’d have a sock full of pennies.

So I anxiously await these same people calling out the Telegram for BLATANTLY ripping off our story about the road race scandal. If you haven’t seen it yet, everyone’s favorite shameless “reporter” at the Telegram, Samantha Allen, wrote an article today about this story. Unlike the Telegram, we have journalistic integrity so we’ll link the story that we’re basing our blog off of.

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A story about cheating that was blatantly stealing information from another source. O Henry couldn’t make up that much irony. I’d say that Sam Allen would get reamed out by her boss tomorrow, but since the Telegram is a sinking ship of employee turnover, they probably don’t even know who the boss will be tomorrow.

I mean, what do we really need the newspaper for anyway? There’s really only three people on that stuff who provide any value – Dianne, Spanky, and Old Balls. And they don’t even pay Old Balls. Those three get clicks. Clicks get you advertisers. Everyone else is pretty much expendable.

Do we own this story? Of course not. But we’ve cited Sam Allen’s work in our blogs a million times before. No one OWNS the news. But when you’re writing stories, everyone with an ounce of integrity knows that you should cite your sources. If you don’t then it’s plagiarism. That’s the whole point of citations. Pointing out where you got information from. Plain and simple.

Here’s her excuse:

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I called the fire department on the rumors.”

Oh yea? What rumors? Is that what millenials call other people’s work now? Rumors? Welcome to the future of journalism.

Sam Allen never even mentioned Turteboy Sports in her article. Like I said, we don’t own the story. But the fact of the matter is that the story wouldn’t exist if we didn’t put the work in. Samantha Allen would have no way of even knowing that this happened were it not published on Turtleboy Sports. And her story, which was about the firefighters awarding the REAL winners of Sunday’s race, was a bi-product of our story. Somehow she didn’t believe this was even worth a mention.

What’s really funny is that everyone called it:

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Even us at the end of the article:

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I mean, didn’t she realize how bad this was gonna look? We thought she’d at least have some pride. I mean, what was the purpose of “reporting” this story? Everyone already knows about it. Because they read Turtleboy. She literally gains nothing from this.

I guess it’s not surprising really. After all, this is Samanatha Allen we’re dealing with here. This is the same rookie who’s been stealing our stories for the last six months. Remember back when we wrote this story on January 6th?

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And then she shamelessly wrote this on January 11th?

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It wasn’t really surprising since she wrote in the comments of the Turtleboy Sports page, asking if anyone wanted to talk to her about a story she was writing about cut through streets. Everyone immediately started making fun of her. We felt really, really bad for her. We figured she was some young rookie reporter, desperate for a story, who didn’t realize how pathetic she was coming across. So we granted her mercy and took the comment down to save her the public embarrassment.

And this is how she repays us. Oh well. Keep doing you Sam Allen. All you’re doing is giving us more credibility and making your newspaper into a bigger joke than it already is.

P.S. Should we just add a daily sudoku to the blog, and maybe toss in some movie listings and open it up to some letters to the Turtleboy? I mean, we would completely put them out of business then right? Turtleboy is free. They cost money. Why pay for yesterday’s free news and sudoku?

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31 Comment(s)
  • well
    June 20, 2015 at 5:36 am

    I added Sam hoping to get a date, she is clearly not into me. I was hoping to help her with her journalism and she could help me with my quest for re posted articles. Date is still on Sam, if you ever change your mind. She actually writes some OK stuff, but her tweets fro the DOJ meetings make me want to puke.

    • TurtleBoySpurts
      June 21, 2015 at 11:04 am

      Good for Sam. She’s a talented journalist, and also clearly wise with respect to her choice in men. Well, guess you’ll be hanging onto that bottle of baby oil after all.

  • Mid Town Mall Rat
    June 19, 2015 at 8:58 pm

    I’m gonna keep an eye out for any more race cheaters at this Sundays Worcester Half Marathon for TBS since the finish is pretty much right at my doorstep, the one and only Mid Town Mall. I’ll also an keep a keen eye out for Samantha too. She might be a little short on story ideas but sorry… she’s way hotter than you shellboy

  • Mr. Nice Guy
    June 19, 2015 at 3:27 pm

    By all accounts Sam Allen is a bright kid who busts her ass. This is not on her. If she came up with the idea, her editor should have known about the TBS piece and spiked her story.

    I fear it’s more than there’s no one left to teach her; I believe she’s being told to do this stuff. The T&G tried to be cute a couple of weeks ago when a piece appeared online about the best high school mascot nicknames. They repackaged a piece from 2012, and were rightly called out.

    In media you either lead or follow, and followers get crushed. This chasing of other people’s stories is JV stuff and it’s a loser for the T&G.

  • Sue Leadiveuzen
    June 19, 2015 at 1:54 pm

    Very true, no one “owns” a story, especially a story that everyone has been buzzing about who was at the race. Any news station could say “We’re on at noon so we had the story first” wahh wahh, but they don’t.

  • Analytics don't lie
    June 19, 2015 at 11:01 am

    If only I were on the inside at the T&G… see where all the traffic is coming from. I’d put Sam Allen’s salary on the fact that majority of her clicks and traffic is coming straight from TBSports. How do you justify that to advertisers?

    Giving her the benefit of the doubt here.. just to play devils advocate. She could have even said – rumors were swirling since the race, you may have read this story on TBsports too. Or something if she were doing her research simultaneously as you. There’s no way she or anyone at the T&G didn’t see it or know it was being published 24 hours prior.

  • Hal Rimmel
    June 19, 2015 at 9:54 am

    I guarantee the people who messaged turtle boy also contacted the T and G, Wo Mag, MassLive, Channel 3, and the other actual news sources in Central MA. These publications cannot run a story based on heresy, they have to actually talk to local officials. That is why this story took a little longer to come out. Come on Turtleboy you should know this.

    • Dude
      June 19, 2015 at 11:16 am

      I have to agree, this would not be an example of her stealing a story from you. If she took your stats, used your interviews, or used any of the other info you did the leg work for then you’d have a case. But all she wrote on was her conversation with the WFD. You did break the story first and with way more info (and by far the better coverage), but you don’t own the story just cause you were quicker to put it out.

      If there was a horrific car accident outside Turtle Boy Sports headquarters and you were able to break the story 20 minutes after it happened, that doesn’t mean every news outlet that reports after you is coping you. It just means you were first.

      • RJ
        June 19, 2015 at 11:39 am

        Generally speaking, if a news outlet is first to a story (by a wide margin), subsequent reporting generally credits the initial report. That’s why you regularly hear “And we have a story about X, as initially reported by (News outlet Y). Our own (replaceable news face A) is at the scene with new details.”

        • Dude
          June 19, 2015 at 11:52 am

          Do you have some examples of this? I rarely hear one news agency crediting the breaking of a story to another. It would be promting your competition, which no one wants to do regardless if it is right or wrong. She very well could have recieved the tip right around the same time TB did, but due to the corporate hoops can’t put it out nearly as fast as TB can.

          • RJ
            June 19, 2015 at 12:03 pm

            You see it all the time in sports reporting which I guess this would fall under.

            An outlet like Profootballtalk credits/links to every story they post.

            Additionally, you see things like this:

            http://www.csnne.com/boston-red-sox/report-no-chance-ortiz-agrees-trade (As reported by Boston Globe, with link)

            http://www.csnne.com/boston-red-sox/was-pablo-sandoval-on-instgram-during-boston-red-sox-loss (Credit/Link to Barstool guy who broke story)

            http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/boston-red-sox-david-ortiz-big-papi-waiving-no-trade-clause-no-chance-061915 (Again, credits Globe, links to story)

            Now, some of those are quotes that were made to a particular outlet, so it might be hard to get around it, but they all named the specific publication and linked to the article where it was reported. The Sandoval/Instagram thing was directly credited to the Barstool guy in every article I’ve seen on the topic. If it’s publicly available information (like the race results, for example or the score of a game), you obviously wouldn’t credit the first person to report the score of the game, but if it’s based on rumors and innuendo and someone did some digging and reported it, you credit the original source.

          • RJ
            June 19, 2015 at 12:07 pm

            I have a pending comment because of the links, but if you do a quick google search on the Pats signing Revis, you find articles from all sorts of various outlets and they all say something to the affect of “Just a few hours after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers released him, Darrelle Revis has agreed to terms with the Patriots on a two-year, $32 million contract, according to NFL Media’s Albert Breer, per a Patriots source. ESPN first reported the news.” (that’s from an nfl.com article on the subject).

          • Dude
            June 19, 2015 at 1:37 pm

            I do see the credit, RJ. NFL.com gives the credit, but Boston.com on the same story does not credit (credits a couple other reporters from Bleacher Report). So, it looks like credit needs to be given if the info in the article was recieved by said source. If she recieved a “tip” from someone and did her own leg work (the call to WFD), then she does not need to credit TB. Reading her article, you can tell she did not get her info from the TB coverage. She does not have nearly as much info as TB did, but she also didn’t “steal” any of it.

        • Norman
          June 19, 2015 at 1:51 pm

          That’s not true. Just because a news agency gets something first, other news agencies don’t credit the ones who broke it unless they use something from them. If the Telegram had a story first, and Turtleboy decided to do their own story, if they do their own reporting, they don’t need to, and shouldn’t say, “As first reported in the Telegram,”unless Turtleboy was using information directly from the article.

        • tonya reese
          June 21, 2015 at 1:35 pm

          That’s not really true. You hear anchors saying “a story you heard first hear on 7 news” about a big story because they were the first to air it….that doesn’t mean ch, 4, 5, 6 have to say “we have a story that was first reported on 7 news” just because the arrived on the scene later than ch 7. a story is everyone’s unless it’s an exclusive – meaning a person has chosen to do an interview with only one station. If that’s the case, other stations can’t take a tape of that interview and use it for their own story. otherwise, again, it’s everyone’s story. many people could have very well contacted these other news outlets. TB has no way of proving he was the only one who people went to with this story. That’s not possible.

      • June 19, 2015 at 3:08 pm

        Without tbs this story literally doesn’t exist. Theresa Pickens would’ve faded into thin air. The fact of the matter is that sam read out blog, and instead of saying she heard about it here, she credited “rumors”

    • June 19, 2015 at 3:06 pm

      I know as a matter of fact that none of these sources contacted the telegram. If people have real news they come to us. The fd contacted tbs. then the telegram contacted the fd

      • Sal Landon
        June 20, 2015 at 4:24 pm

        “If people have real news they come to us”. Are you serious? You have NONE of the breaking news stories the Telegram has.

        • Finnish Goalie
          June 21, 2015 at 2:01 pm

          Associated Press isn’t the Telegram.

      • tonya reese
        June 21, 2015 at 1:38 pm

        You might be correct these sources might have only contacted TB. What about the thousands of others at the race? One or two of those people could have contacted the Telegram.

  • Maggie the Cat
    June 19, 2015 at 9:20 am

    Can you trademark or copyright your blog so that the T&G reporters actually have to do their own work?

  • Telegram Court Records
    June 19, 2015 at 8:29 am

    Perhaps she is a Transjournalist?

  • Black
    June 19, 2015 at 7:48 am

    Thank goodness for TB!!
    Since T&G went to new format, I rarely go there anymore.
    Doesn’t surprise me that they are reading TB for article leads. None of them have an original idea in their heads.

  • Clive's not racist, just ask him.
    June 19, 2015 at 7:32 am

    I must say, that was a tough poll, TB!! Do I vote for myself and try to ‘win’ this thing, or do I show some sportsmanship and give a nod to those other two wonderful hacks?!?… I voted for myself, Clive, because to vote for those other two honkies would be racist!!!

  • Stinking Dogpile
    June 19, 2015 at 7:18 am

    The T&G is an f-ing joke and their so called reporters are even bigger jokes.
    Womag is f-ing joke too. Those clowns think they’re journalists.
    Incitytimes is dog diarrhea.
    Just 3 sources for whats called news in Worcester? A f-ing joke!
    Dont get me started on the radio stations.
    Media in Worcester is bad, real bad.

    Best of award goes to T-boy. Calling like it is. Thats reporting.

  • fordsnharleys
    commentsget clicks
    June 19, 2015 at 6:48 am

    Since the telegram required login to view comments it has become quite boring. I just browse to see who the perp is or what crap clive is spewing but the community banter posted anonymously gave me a real feel for the community I live in. Thank god for your blog to keep us in touch with what people are really thinking.

    • Stop the madness.
      June 19, 2015 at 11:02 pm

      Ahhhhhhh…I didn’t realize that’s why I couldn’t see the comments any more. I just figured it didn’t work because of the “updated” lock-down site. I only went to the site to see top articles viewed and then enjoyed the comments. I did view obits and court section too but with that public information on lock-down, I don’t even bother. I’ll save my 3 free clicks and just visit TB or oh I don’t know…any number of free news sites online. Get more advertisers T&G…or you will end up with the next Gofundme page.

    • Strata
      June 22, 2015 at 1:38 pm

      Your right, the T&G shot itself in the foot by requiring Posters be Non-anonymous. I hardly ever go to the site anymore. And the comment sections are typically empty. My email to T&G reader services said;

      I truly believe you will lose a lot of “internet traffic, & subscribers” because of this. I prefer to post anonymously – not because I’m rude or inappropriate, BECAUSE there are many folks with opposing views that I don’t want to harass me if for some reason that don’t agree with my opinion. Unfortunately that’s the world we live in. That’s why the overwhelming majority of sites are anonymous but censor when need be. And trust me, the T&G was fine with deleting inappropriate posts (and non-justified)

  • curmudgeon
    June 19, 2015 at 5:39 am

    Sam should take a phrase from Rachel Dolezal and call it creative non-fiction!

  • BobnMic
    June 19, 2015 at 3:31 am

    uheem Mr. COB your Eminence my good man. I do believe that this would be a befitting venue for your immaculate and lavish descriptor of one’s, so awaiting, tongue fart punch. No? You would agree say you not so Professor of Fart Box anatomy? I am speaking British and it feels rather silly don’t you think Mr. COB.

    So I’m going back to the American Idiot that I truly am… 😀 😀 😀

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