Watchdog Milwaukee regularly scoops the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel but that’s to be expected. We ask a lot of tough questions and have some biting commentary that a news source which relies on sponsors doesn’t necessarily want to offend those who pay the salaries. At the same time, they have many reporters who do a tremendous job.

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that is the case, I should be flattered that the JS has started running “Watchdog Reports”.

It just seems a little icky.

It’s not a terribly honorable thing in journalism to take others work and claim it as your own without giving credit and I have had JS reporters do that after promising at least to mention Watchdog Milwaukee in their columns. At the same time, they have a larger audience than we do so if a story is more important than the byline, then I’m not one to be offended.

I have neither a wonderful nor a terrible relationship with the JS. I write a blog for them (without compensation I’ll add) which from all of the e-mail responses I’ve gotten must result in a ton of readers. On the other side, I’ve received late night calls from JS reporters screaming at me for being critical of them. Why? Because I’m doing what a watchdog does. The snide comments I’ve heard from compensated “journalists” include “well I’ll just consider the source”. Another berated bloggers as less than gossip columnists who don’t have to follow journalistic ethics. (A term I’ve come to realize is only selectively adhered to by some compensated journalists.)

Is it completely ripping off Watchdog Milwaukee? No. I’m not the first to consider myself a Watchdog. In fact, it was shortly after I began writing for the JS under the byline “The Watchdog” that they started writing “Watchdog Reports” so I’m sure there’s someone over at the JS who is convinced that the idea came from an internal source.

Still, does this reporter, columnist, blogger, call me what you will, care about credit? A better way to say it would be that I am flattered. If what we do inspires the Journal-Sentinel to get back to journalistic roots of solid, hard-core reporting, I’ve done my job and the only one that deserves credit is the one who inspired Watchdog Milwaukee — legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow.

I can’t help but wonder if Murrow would be flattered if he knew he inspired me.