Has the Daily Mail extended BBC the 'sincerest form of flattery'?

There may have been some red faces over at the Mail this morning after TheMediaBlog revealed it had run a story first covered in October 2008 by the BBC and other media outlets, including the Guardian and, funnily enough the Daily Mail. 

So how did it come to write such an old story, having covered it once before? The Media Blog readers think they know they answer. John Self wrote:

"I think I know why this happened. This story was in the 'most read' list on the BBC News site last week (it happens occasionally with 'quirky' stories from years ago, as email links spread in their unpredictable way, and then people see it on the Most Read list and click it, thus enhancing the effect). I guess a lazy Mail hack clicked the story, and decided to cover it without looking at the date at the top."

While Gordon chipped in:

"I'm willing to bet this is ...because a Daily Mail "journalist" saw the story appearing on the BBC News 'Most read' section yesterday, didn't check the article date, then went right ahead and plagiarised..., sorry *was inspired by* it."

And Chris added:

"Damn the BBC for not taking down its old content!"

While it was left for Andrew P. to chime in:

"The Daily Mail may hate the BBC but that clearly doesn't stop them stealing its content. Sadly it's been caught out here by the fact the story it stole had reappeared in the BBC's Most-Read section."

I'm sure there is a far more innocent explanation. Probably just a bug in the content management system, or a problem related to Y2K... in fact yeah, that'll be it - it was the interweb's fault.

Comments

[adambanksdotcom]

What I like is the way the Mail have used the same picture they ran the previous time. You can imagine the conversation:

"Hi, is that the picture desk? Can I just check if you've got a shot of that thing I've just written a BRAND NEW and COMPLETELY ORIGINAL story about? You've got it on file? Great."

Penny remains in mid-air...