Thread by @MoniqueOMadan

THREAD: This is why it's so important to know who you read. Below is a completely plagiarized copy of my @miamiherald article in the "Driscoll Register" that's been floating around FB. It says it's been written by a Lisa Richards just yesterday.
driscollregister.com/they-pushed-tr…

This is almost exactly THREE months after my article was published. Richards and/or the publication was so lazy that they didn't even change the headline. Here is it verbatim.
miamiherald.com/news/local/imm…

What’s even more disappointing (and sloppy) is that they also forgot to NOT copy and paste a @MiamiHerald ad. Such ads are usually embedded in our stories.

This is why knowing and trusting the publication you are reading, along with the reporter behind the stories, is so important. I was floored when I saw this being shared by groups that I have interviewed! It's so easy to be duped into reading unreliable content.

Oh, and before I took this to Twitter, I made sure to ask the publication to take it down. The verdict? Their email doesn’t exist.

Some will say, “Oh, it’s a small blog, who cares?”

This creates a culture of mistrust in the the press, a press that works relentlessly to bring you information that’s trustworthy and vital to issues in our communities.

Not all of them are that, but the @MiamiHerald sure is.

And to readers of journalism: PLEASE vet who you read. If the website doesn’t have a valid email address, or a contact for the reporter (or an ad for another publication) it’s probably not reliable.

This thread is officially over, but I still want to chat with this untraceable Lisa Richards and anyone at the Driscoll Register.

An aside:

It’s worse than we thought.

My editor: “Every story on the site is a direct, word-for-word lift from the @MiamiHerald, including to promos to subscribe to the Miami Herald.

The byline on every one is Lisa Richards.”

This even includes stories by @jkbjournalist.

Addendum: @ceostroff just compiled more than 12 pages of plagiarized links from this site, and she's just getting started. In the process of doing that, we've come to learn of at least three other sites of its kind stealing our South Florida and national content.