Note to The Hayride blog and its writer John Binder:
Make your links more easily visible and attribute what you post to the person or blog that you copied and pasted from.
Mr. Binder posted a story today (March 14) under the heading TROOPER-GATE: Board Members Tasked With Investigating State Troopers Money Funneling Scheme Also Funneled Money http://thehayride.com/2016/03/trooper-gate-board-members-tasked-with-investigating-state-troopers-money-funneling-scheme-also-funneled-money/
I accused Mr. Binder of failing to include links to our story. The fact is, he did have two links, but did not with the list of contributions. Instead, he simply copied and pasted without proper attribution.
Mr. Binder copied and pasted the list of campaign contributions that I had gone to the trouble of formatting to make them fit on our blogpost without losing their continuity. To do so, I had to squeeze the excel page by deleting several unnecessary columns that included addresses, home towns, and other data that added nothing to the content. https://louisianavoice.com/2016/03/10/state-police-commission-members-probing-lsta-appear-to-have-committed-similar-campaign-contribution-violations/
That, of course, may prompt the obvious question: how do I know Mr. Binder didn’t do his own formatting?
Good question. And there’s a simple answer.
In my listing of campaign contributions by State Police Commission member Freddie Pitcher, I deliberately left a blank line (between campaign recipients Edward James and Nicole Sheppard) with only “F102,” a special coding by the Ethics Commission, included in an otherwise blank space. FREDDIE PITCHER CONTRIBS
That was a deliberate trick I learned from John Hays, the late publisher of Ruston’s Morning Paper.
So while Mr. Binder apparently contacted the same source I had used for my story, he included links that were difficult to recognize and which were not obvious to the reader, he failed to provide links or credit for the list of contributions, which made it appear to his work. It wasn’t. We discussed that and agreed that it was a simple misunderstanding but one which should not have happened.
To his credit, he has edited his blog post to accurately reflect that we were the source of the list of campaign contributions and we appreciate his gesture.
Louisiana Voice 
LOL! Great “gotcha” Tom!
Hayride? Haywire? I prefer Hayseed, which most accurately depicts their audience.
Nicely done, by the way, catching them in the act of plagiarism.
I’m impressed. Tom takes time to read the Hayride so we don’t need to. Thanks.
Citing sources used to be taught in high school English classes. Surely, this is common knowledge for everyone. To not cite sources constitutes plagerism and plagerism used to discredit the writer. I think it still applies.
I’m so confused. I linked Louisiana Voice TWICE in my article. I was told from a confidential source of the same info. you were given a few days ago. That was the basis of my article. Then, I asked my confidential source where I could get the campaign contributions lists from the State Police Commission members. That’s when I was told you had posted them already, hence why I screenshot them and listed them in my article and cited your article TWICE.
I did not realize that linking back to your article twice would not be enough citations. I can certainly go back and mention that the campaign contributions list was compiled by the Louisiana Voice and link it for the third time.
About that Nigerian prince with the $10 million to deposit in my checking account….doncha just feel like the whole state of Louisiana was sold a bill of goods and hornswaggled by a pretend prince (and his conservative princelings in the legislature)?
To paraphrase that great circus showman, P.T. Barnum: “you’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
And the Hayride’s John Binder should never underestimate LouisianaVoice’s Tom Aswell.
John: Quoting my mother, “cheaters never win”. I do thank you for the giggles you provided after a long, hard day of original work.
Thanks, but I’m Tom.
Is there a reason this post has not be updated with factual info. or even removed for that matter?
I discussed this with Tom and he even apologized to me for getting it wrong and accusing me of stealing work that I did not steal. When will the post be updated to reflect that or when will it be removed considering these claims against me are entirely untrue and have been resolved with the author of the post?
Oh I miss me some John Hays.
Can’t believe, Tom, your wannabe placed comments at the end of your classic “gotcha” blog.
Hit dog hollers.
Pig in gate squeals.
Tom: I was responding to John’s post, but replied to Earthmother’s.
10-4.
Well, I’m disappointed. I learned of this blog from a link within The Hayride entailing an article about Troy Hebert: http://thehayride.com/2016/01/troy-hebert-is-going-to-run-for-the-senate-which-is-absolutely-bloody-insane/.
I’ve been reading Louisiana Voice since that time, and I contacted a long-time friend at LSP, and that’s how I could state with such assurance that they want Tom to go away (the Boudreaux ousting obviously didn’t do the trick).
It appears John did the same thing Scott did in providing the link, yet Scott wasn’t criticized, and I have to wonder what people may think after clicking on the link to then see a separate Louisiana Voice post blasting John, the very person who steered them to this website!
That’s especially true when John posts a comment saying all had been cleared up and Tom even apologized. This is just my opinion, but I think this episode reflects more unfavorably on Louisiana Voice than The Hayride.
I intend to keep reading Louisiana Voice, but I’m not sure I would have done so if the first thing guiding me here had been John’s post rather than Scott’s post on Hebert which is what referred me here. It would have just been too bizarre to see a separate post lambasting the one who referred me here.
I’m an avid supporter of the Louisiana Voice and Tom Aswell. However, Mr. Binder, immediately corrected and reattributed credit for the campaign contribution list to the proper source. Continuing to rehash the incident is unbecoming at best.
Oversight made, apology offered, corrections made, apology accepected…move on.