This story truly is bizarre as the title on the Digital Journalist feature says.

Some weirdo apparently wanted his claim to fame and resorted to stealing works from several photographers and passing them as his own. For years if not decades no less! But that’s hardly news at all no matter how long he was doing it, it happens way too often. No, no… when he died The New York Times, The Tennessean, American Photo, The Boston Globe and other media outlets bought this fake story and ran his obituary praising his exceptional work and showing photo(s) that someone in those organisation should have recognized as stolen. But no…they didn’t.

It was Gary Haynes, a retired UPI photographer, who recognized the real author and contacted NYT the next morning (aug. 15) yet they still haven’t published a statement, correction or apology.

Head over to TOP for another take on this.

UPDATE

Tyge O’Donnell, son of the photographer whose work is being scrutinized, tries to explain the situation in an email to the Editor & Publisher journal.

Back in the mid-1990s, Dad made a trip to the National Archives and found what he thought were some of his unaccredited photos // In my fathers mind, in the state he was in from the 1990’s onward until his death, he honestly thought it was his photograph // Whether young and partying or old and going senile, your mind can convince you of things if you let it… or if you want it to. If you’ve ever seen how senility and Alzheimer’s can deteriorate a person, you would understand.

Fake Steve Jobs in a boring rant, that’s anything but boring, predicts the end of TV networks. It is a rant, it is somewhat far-fetched as a thought experiment however it does contain some truth in there somewhere.

It’s over now. Your business model was a historical anomaly built on scarcity of a valuable resource and the willingness of a small group of network operators to not slit each other’s throats and to collaborate in exploiting the content producers. Sort of like the Five Families in New York. Wars are bad for business.

The networks, as such, are becoming obsolote, there’s hardly any doubt about that. Google is the new network, Apple is the new network…

Apple is not really a computer company anymore, or even a consumer electronics company. We’re a network. We take content and distribute it out to millions of people, who play it on handhelds (sold by me) and computer screens (ditto) and yes, maybe, sometimes, on actual TV sets. At one end of the value chain, the consumer end, people have already voted. They like my system better than yours.

But will the old gits be successful in changing their game from distribution to content production? Or rather… are they willing to step down? If the fight against movie/music piracy is anything to go by they’re more into the whole status quo deal. But the nature of the beast demands change…

Trust me, however, when I tell you that TV and movie people will figure it out too. These are not stupid people. And they are not un-greedy….The talented ones will go first. Bad news for you, TV networks. You’ll be stuck with the shittiest creators, the timid ones who don’t dare cross the chasm. Your shows will get worse and worse. Your sitcoms will grow lamer, if that’s possible. Your reality shows will grow stupider.

patience grasshopper… the day will come

Back in the day when Microsoft Research Asia launched the RSS reading habits survey I was quite intrigued where I’d fit in with the grand scheme of things.
As it turns out I’m riding somewhere in the peloton in most categories.

But get this… max number of feeds subscribed: 1823!! I’m above mean but well below that particular nerd ;)