Cincinnati Enquirer's Politics Extra: Stealing Stories From Bloggers?

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- So desperate for news items, the Cincinnati Enquirer appears to have resorted to outright theft on Politics Extra, its political blog. The paper's crack political reporting team apparently didn't know about this news until several long hours after it appeared in The Daily Bellwether, which is checked daily by the newspaper. The Bellwether's piece about U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt being invited to speak at the values voters conference was on the Internet since early Tuesday, nearly a half day before the Enquirer got around to reporting anything about it. The newspaper no doubt read The Bellwether, but it didn't give credit, or couldn't admit it was scooped again.

Glad to see Washington reporter Malia Rulon found the news worthy of reporting. But, geez, guys, don't you have any ethics?

[UPDATE: 5:55 pm 10/10/07 -- Malia Rulon e-mailed The Bellwether today saying she learned of the Schmidt appearance at the Values Voters confab from another source. Here's what she says: "I was forwarded you blog today. I had not seen your earlier post about Rep. Schmidt speaking aat the FRC meeting, so apologies if you think I copied you without credit. As you've seen in the past, I do credit when I get a tip from a blog. In this case, my colleague who covers Fred Thompson pointed Schmidt's speaking slot out to me since he's covering the event." I asked Malia if I could update with what she said, and she responded fine.]