Express delivery!

I tend to think that there are few things in life that are more annoying than the kid at the end of the Daily Express adverts who pops onto the screen and shouts "Express delivery".

But for local journalists, getting your stories nicked and then presented as exclusives by the nationals comes pretty close.

In yesterday's Sunday Express, there was a story about Fran Lyon, the Hexham woman who has fled to Europe to stop social services taking her baby, which contained the following line:

"Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Express from her hideaway, she said: 'The fact they have allowed me to keep my daughter is as close as you'll get to the authorities saying "we've messed up."

'They now realise they would have have stood a chance if it was taken to court. Because of them, I've lost everything. My job, my home, I've sold it all."

Compare that to the following quote from The Journal on December 28:

“It is basically as close as you will get to them saying ‘sorry, we messed up’, as they have realised they wouldn’t stand a chance if it was challenged in court.

“I hit the roof when I found out. Because of them I have lost everything – my job, my home and I have sold everything."

Now either Fran Lyon has a little speech written down for journalists which she reads whenever they call her, or the Express has nicked our quotes.

There's nothing terribly wrong with that, as far as I'm concerned - newspapers take stuff from other newspapers all the time, and I'd be the first to admit that the first time we did the story on Fran Lyon, we were following up a piece in the Sunday Telegraph.

But what we did was actually track Ms Lyon down and talk to her, then take the story on, not just re-print someone else's work and then have the cheek to claim that as an exclusive.

Readers are not stupid and if they keep reading stuff described as exclusives that clearly aren't, they are going to start thinking that the word has no meaning.

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