If you’ve ever spent hours digging into a story, verifying every detail, and crafting a piece you’re proud of, you’ll know the sense of satisfaction that comes when you hit publish.
That’s what makes it so infuriating when, an hour or two later, you see your hard work appear elsewhere — often reworded, sometimes not reworded at all — with no mention of where it came from.
It happens a lot.
Here at the UK Defence Journal, we’ve become used to seeing our original reporting turn up in other outlets. I’m not talking about press releases, which are meant to be shared widely — that’s just how news works. I mean stories we’ve broken, facts we’ve uncovered, quotes we’ve sourced, and details we’ve pieced together that suddenly appear in bigger outlets with a wider reach. Sometimes they’re lightly rephrased. Other times, entire paragraphs are lifted word-for-word.
No credit. No link. Just… taken.
The Difference with Press Releases
Before we go any further, it’s worth addressing an important distinction. Like many outlets, we frequently publish stories based on press releases from governments, defence contractors, or other organisations. These are official statements meant to be disseminated widely, often appearing across multiple publications.
You’ve likely seen these stories on our site — announcements about new defence contracts, military exercises, or official deployments. You’ll see these exact stories elsewhere, too, because that’s the point of press releases: they’re designed to be shared.
Even so, when we publish press releases, we always make it clear where the information has come from. We attribute them to the organisation or agency issuing them. It’s transparent and routine.
But this article isn’t about press releases. It’s about original reporting — the stories we dig up ourselves, the facts we uncover, and the work we put in to give our readers something new. That’s what’s being copied. And that’s the problem.
Trap Streets
To combat this growing issue, we’ve adopted a method often used by mapmakers: “trap streets.” In our case, these aren’t streets but minor, deliberate grammatical quirks or subtle phrasing choices we include in our original articles. These quirks are meaningless to the reader but unmistakable to us — like a fingerprint.
If we see these quirks pop up in someone else’s article, we know our work has been copied. Whether it’s a misplaced comma, a slightly unconventional phrasing, or an otherwise insignificant detail, these traps help us identify when our original reporting has been lifted.
So, if you’re republishing our work — whether lightly rephrased or verbatim — trust us, we know you’re doing it.
Why This Matters
We’re not being precious here — this is about basic fairness. Reporting isn’t magic. It’s hard work. It takes research, phone calls, emails, fact-checking, and time. Seeing that effort passed off as someone else’s is frustrating for any journalist, but for independent outlets like ours, it’s particularly galling.
When a big outlet uses our work and doesn’t credit us, we don’t just lose out on recognition. We lose out on readers — people who might have come to our site if they knew where the story came from. It’s not just the “clickbait factories” that do this. Proper, established newspapers are guilty of it too. And they should know better.
The news cycle moves fast. When a story breaks, everyone wants to have it. It’s not unusual for larger outlets to rely on smaller, more niche publications to spot stories worth covering. That’s fine. Following up on someone else’s reporting is how journalism works. But there’s a difference between building on a story and just… lifting it.
If another outlet breaks a story, it’s simple: credit them. Say “as first reported by…” and include a link. It takes seconds, and it’s the right thing to do.
At its core, journalism is built on trust and integrity. We hold ourselves to high standards when it comes to accuracy, so why not the same for fairness? If someone else’s reporting forms the basis of your story, pretending otherwise isn’t just misleading — it’s plagiarism.
And no, rewording a paragraph or shuffling sentences around doesn’t make it okay. If the work is clearly someone else’s, credit them.
What Needs to Change
This is a problem that’s easy to fix. If you’re a journalist or editor:
- Give credit where it’s due: If you didn’t break the story, don’t pretend you did. A simple mention like “as first reported by the UK Defence Journal” is all it takes.
- Link back: It’s a small gesture, but it makes a big difference. It directs readers to the original work and gives credit where it belongs.
- Respect original work: Good journalism doesn’t just happen. It takes time, effort, and expertise, and that deserves recognition.
For readers, it’s worth asking: “Where did this story come from?” If you’re seeing the same information pop up in multiple places, look for the source. Often, it’s smaller outlets like ours that did the hard work.
A Final Thought
We’re proud of the work we do at the UK Defence Journal. Breaking stories and bringing our readers accurate, timely defence news is what we’re here for. But when that work is taken, reworded, or copied without credit, it’s not just frustrating — it’s unfair and that isn’t very British, is it?
It’s time for everyone — from clickbait sites to the biggest newspapers — to do better. Original reporting matters. Let’s start treating it that way.
Yes, YouTube channels with clickbait titles copy the article and put it with crappy text-to-speech software with visuals that don’t match half the time. I found one that copied and pasted an article from Navy Lookout.
Well said George, but isn’t it covered by Copyright so you can go after them ? Forgive my ignorance but surely they owe you £££ if you can prove it.
I fully agree with your position.
My only comment is it would be good if you made it clearer when you are publishing a researched independent article and when you are just repeating a press release which are often designed to be misleading or put across a specific point of view rather than a balanced opinion piece.
Nearly all the text of MSM newspapers is now generated by Automated Text Generation Software: however with the dreaded intertubes, anything goes. Technology is likely to solve the problem. Or not.
It’s not in the interest of the big tech companies to solve it, as they only care about engagement, they don’t care what that engagement looks like, as long as it happens.
They could easily stamp down on it if they wanted to but it would cost them some of their staggeringly high profits. It would need something like the EU to stand up to them and force them to be held responsible for them to deal with it.
The EU is falling apart: they are more concerned with keeping the ramshackle old banger on the road.
It happens everywhere, its normal practice. There really are no ethics in anything nowadays. So “join the pack”, dog eat dog and all that.
name and shame
You can’t shame anyone now a days there is none.
This is why, so many people look to you for information. I first read the article and more importantly read the comments