Editor’s Note: Bartels on Sept. 15 responded to “Half Glass Full,” saying she was unaware of the earlier report. However, she has amended neither her story nor her blog post to note the existence of a previously reported story.

STATE BILL COLORADO

A blogger known by the handle “Half Glass Full” says a Denver Post reporter failed to give proper credit for a report suggesting that the Colorado Republican Party might lose major-party status after the November election.

The blogger posted the item on Sept. 9. Post reporter Lynn Bartels wrote about the subject four days later. No reference was made either to the blog or to the website, Coloradopols.com, where the item was published.

“Gee, thanks Lynn,” the blogger subsequently wrote under the headline “Lynn Bartels stole my story.”

Earlier this month, the Associated Press released editorial guidelines for credit and attribution. The AP, one of the world’s largest news-gathering operations, said, among other things:

We should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it’s U.S. based; and whether or not it’s an AP member or subscriber.

This policy applies to all reports in all media, from short pieces, such as NewsNows and initial broadcast reports, to longer pieces aimed at print publication.

AP’s policy also contemplates giving credit to other organizations when they break a story and “we match or further develop it.”

If organization X breaks a story and we then match it through our own original reporting, we should say something like this: “The secret meeting in Paris was initially reported by X.”

The Post’s ethics policy, posted on its website, contains a far shorter section on credit and attribution, mostly having to do with plagiarism, which was not alleged in this case:

All writing and reporting in The Denver Post must be original or credited to the proper source.