For close to eighteen months now, we have been honored to bring you news and information the mainstream Oklahoma press refuses to cover. In that time, we have broken a few stories and have provided you with a number of exclusives. You have continued to support our diligence with your faithful readership, so much in fact, that OKPNS has recently moved up to the "second most influential blog" in Oklahoma. You can rest assured that we will be working even harder in the coming weeks to be the number one "most influential blog" in Oklahoma. We thank everyone for their support - even our detractors! And now, the reason for the title of this post. We received a email from a retired and influential respected journalist a few weeks after the launch of OKPNS with a story idea. This person praised our blog and wished us success. A few weeks later, this respected journalist decided to start their own blog. No problem. We welcome the competition, and besides, we believe the Oklahoma political blogosphere is large enough to accommodate another blog. At their start, we linked to their posts constantly until we realized our gesture wasn't being reciprocated. We e-mailed the influential and respected journalist/blogger to ask them what was the deal. Their reasons? They claimed OKPNS doesn't use original material (which of course we do) and we use excerpts from Associated Press articles - which they claimed was illegal. Now, we see that this respected journalist/blogger uses AP excerpts on his blog. That's fine. But over the course of our eighteen month history, we've noticed quite a few other similarities between our blog and theirs. One, we were the first to start e-mailing OKPNS updates to our readers and influential Oklahoma politicos. Guess what? We started getting email updates from this respected journalist/blogger. Second, we put a quote from the Roll Call newspaper at the top of our website. Guess what? This same respected journalist/blogger put up several quotes from people praising his blog at the top of his website. Third, we wanted to be a comprehensive source of news for Oklahomans that included national and international news, so we added a Reuters video player. Guess what? This respected journalist/blogger installed a rolling headline news service that includes national and international news. Fourth, our mission at OKPNS was to - not only give you inside OK political news - but to also feature excerpts from other Oklahoma bloggers. Guess what? Now, our respected journalist/blogger friend uses excerpts from other Oklahoma bloggers that you've probably never heard of. Fifth, during the primary season last summer, we added a poll question to our site to gauge our readers opinions. Guess what? Our journalist/blogger friend added a poll to his site. To add insult to injury, the poll question he asked was almost identical to the one we asked. We love the flattery, but Jiminy Cricket, how about a little originality now and then?

Labels: OKPNS

Posted at 10/17/2007 11:52:00 AM