Ex-MailOnline hack accuses title of systematic plagiarism
A damning online article from someone claiming to be an ex-employee of the MailOnline has accused the newsbrand of systematically plagiarising content from across the web and fabricating lies to fit with its click-bait business model.
James King, who said he worked as a freelancer for MailOnline between May 2013 and July 2014 in its New York office, claims that during his time there employees were encouraged to pass off other work as their own.
“Unlike at other publications for which I’ve worked, writers weren’t tasked with finding their own stories or calling sources,” writes King.
“We were simply given stories written by other publications and essentially told to rewrite them. And unlike at other publications where aggregation writers are encouraged to find a unique angle or to add some information missing from an original report, the way to make a story your own at the Mail is to pass off someone else’s work as your own.”
King writes that the only original information the Mail would contribute to the story would be an error or “some sensationalised misrepresentation of facts,” and that any stories which were called out as false, or wrongly-attributed photos, were swiftly removed “as if the whole thing had never happened.”
In his post, King describes a newsroom of twisted facts and sensationalism – and how, despite informing editors about “inaccuracies,” his concerns were dismissed and his byline is “still attached to something that I know is a lie.”
However, the MailOnline has only seen its readership go from strength to strength over the past few years, and is currently the best-performing online news platform in the UK by a long way – with almost 14 million people visiting the platform every day.
Almost 70% of MailOnline traffic comes from outside of the UK and is particularly lucrative in the US. The British-owned newsbrand expanded to a global operation at the beginning of 2014, switching from its .co.uk domain to .com for an estimated £1 million.
“What matters is what it actually is: a publication with millions of readers – many of whom believe what they’re reading – that is not only cited as a credible news outlet by other publications, but is also being held out as the new model for online journalism,” says King.
“With the reach the Mail has come to enjoy comes responsibilities that it either doesn’t realise, or doesn’t care about.”
At the time of publication, DMGT, owners of the MailOnline, had not responded to a request to comment.
However, Rhiannon Macdonald, managing editor of DailyMail.com, told the Guardian the company “utterly refutes” the claims made by King.
In his regular media blog, the Guardian’s Roy Greenslade notes Macdonald’s response to the claims, who said: “King was a freelancer who worked sporadic shifts at DailyMail.com. Before he left he had had become unreliable and late, had missed 14 entire shifts in 10 months, and on one occasion failed to turn up for two shifts…
“He… had to be repeatedly reminded about the need for proper attribution in his work. He offered a version of the story published by Gawker to the Washington Post last year. They rejected it after its inaccuracies and his unreliability were pointed out.”