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(Updated) Consider the juxtaposition of the following three items:

*The AP lifts a story about Administration security policy from Raw Story; AP privately admits the sourcing, but says it is their policy not to credit bloggy sources.

*The AP lifts a story about questionable dealings of a Kansas Republican from Josh Marshall's TPMuckraker; no credit is given.

*The Washington Post, perfectly happy to have Ben Domenech do that juvenile voodoo that he do in their august yet online publication, fires his sorry ass immediately upon learning that he had ripped off various authors whose work had appeared in print.

The lesson here is obvious: Plagiarism of Old Media sources is a Bad Thing. But It's OK If You Rip Off A Blog.

Update: They come in threes. The Wall Street Journal rips off Raw on the Abramoff story. And admits it. From Jason Leopold via Skippy:

today, the wall street journal published a front-page "exclusive" that basically recycled my story from january without mentioning that it was first reported by me or that i broke the story wide open. i spoke to two journal editors in new york. they acknowledged this morning that they read my story and assigned a reporter to follow it up. but they refuse to credit me for first reporting it.

I stand by my piece from a few months ago: Don't You Dare Call me a Journalist.