When Is A Scoop Not A Scoop?

Mediaiate’s Steve Krakauer notes that the L.A. Times is “Getting All Credit For Already Reported Obama-As-Joker Poster”:

When is a big exclusive not actually so exclusive? How about when the blogosphere gets the story long before a mainstream outlet.

This is what happened when the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this week a lengthy story purportedly revealing Firas Alkhateeb as the person who created the now-famous Obama-as-Joker poster in January. The story was picked up by many outlets, and the LAT was given the scoop. But that’s not entirely accurate.

In April, Jonathan Jerald, Editor of BedlamMagazine.com, published a story about the posters being put up around Los Angeles. The story has an update linking to Alkhateeb’s Flickr page where the image originated.

While the name is slightly off (BedlamMagazine.com has it as “Firas Khateeb”), the update contributes what was considered one of the major points to the LAT scoop.

We don’t know when the update was added, but it was certainly long before Monday. In a discussion during the August 5 Red Eye on Fox News, ombudsman Andy Levy cited the Web story during his halftime report. He said the person “posted this to his Flickr account back in January. It’s a photoshop so that’s clearly where the artist took it from” (video below).

The LAT certainly added to the story, but this can be seen as another example of a more mainstream outlet getting credit for a scoop that had, at least partially, already been reported on.

Elsewhere, Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters notes, “Media Largely Ignore Identity of Obama Joker Poster Artist”:

Imagine for a moment the person that created the now famous Obama Joker poster was found to be a white conservative that voted for John McCain and Sarah Palin last November.

Do you think Obama-loving media outlets would have reported the revelation?

Probably 24 hours a day for the next couple of weeks until the episode became a “teachable moment” and the perpetrator was forced to have a beer with the President and Vice President.

Yet, when the Los Angeles Times reported early Monday evening the artist was a liberal-leaning Palestinian, most press members couldn’t have cared less.

Too confusing a story for the legacy media to report in a soundbite. And it goes without saying that it doesn’t fit the narrative.