RADIO ECHOES EXCLUSIVE MISSOURIAN HOAX STORY

Joel Vinson wasn't surprised Tuesday morning when he heard what he thought was a Southeast Missourian news story on the radio.

Vinson, a targeted publications writer for the Missourian, said the story aired by KCGQ (Q-99) at 8 a.m. was similar to the newspaper's copyrighted story that hit newsstands the same morning. He said the incident was just the latest in a series of radio rip-offs of Missourian stories.

But Tom Stein, general manager of KCGQ denies any copyright infringement by his radio station.

"As for this woman who is claiming to be Becky Powell," he said, "I saw the story on CNN this morning."

Stein said his radio station doesn't subscribe to the Southeast Missourian. He said his station uses the news services of ABC and USA Today. KCGQ's news director no longer reads stories published in the newspaper, he said. Only one member of the station's staff has a news title.

Earlier this year, a spokeswoman for the station admitted she had been reading from the newspaper but said it would stop.

Vinson said Tuesday's radio version he heard was similar to the newspaper's story but not word for word.

However, the story was a Southeast Missourian exclusive and wasn't made available to CNN or any other news outlet except The Associated Press. The AP didn't use the Missourian's story, but sent a story from its Houston bureau to members of the wire service.

Peggy Scott, a Missourian staff writer, has listened to announcers on other radio stations read stories she has written. "I just hope people who see the story in the paper and hear it over the radio on the same morning realize the radio is stealing it from us," Scott said.

Most Missourian staff writers can tell tales of radio rip-offs.

Missourian publisher Wally Lage said the paper "can't tolerate" the unauthorized use of the newspaper's stories by radio stations.

The paper spends more than $800,000 a year on its news department budget, and "it isn't fair to our hard-working news staff for someone else to pirate our work without at least giving credit to the Missourian."

Each edition of the Missourian is copyrighted in its entirety, and although the paper's permission is needed for broadcasters who aren't members of The Associated Press to use a newspaper story, Lage said an attribution to the paper would suffice.

"It's copyright infringement," said Tamara Baldwin, a professor at Southeast Missouri State University.

"The law is pretty clear on this," she said. "A radio station reading a story out of the paper over the air is not `fair use.'"

Before broadcasting a newspaper's story, the radio station must have the paper's permission, Baldwin said.

She said a radio station reading a Missourian news story on air -- without permission -- opens the station to possible legal action by the Missourian.

Another local radio station said using newspaper stories on the air was unprofessional.

"It's not our practice or our policy to take stories from the newspaper," KZIM/K103 operations manager Terry Hester said. "We don't condone that at all."

Hester said the station produces news coverage geared toward the community and has developed a news staff of more than half a dozen persons to cover beats in conjunction with its affiliation with CBS radio news, The Associated Press and other area radio stations.

Most other radio stations in Cape Girardeau have only one person devoted to news coverage.

Radio stations stealing newspaper stories is fairly commonplace around the country.

Pennsylvania, especially, has had several copyright infringement cases.

In Reading, The Reading Eagle Co. has filed suit against WIOV radio for copyright infringement.

The company has morning and afternoon dailies and alleges that WIOV radio read news from its newspaper on the air without giving credit. The suit asks for $50,000 in damages.

"We're just interested in making sure it doesn't happen again," a Eagle spokesman said. "The money isn't the issue."

Another case of copyright infringement involving radio stations using newspaper stories occurred in Pottstown.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in 1963 that WPAZ radio in Pottstown wasn't applying "fair use" by reading stories over the air from the Pottstown Daily News. An injunction prohibiting the station from reading the newspaper over the air was issued.

Lage said legal action wasn't out of the question in Cape Girardeau, "but I sure hope it never comes to that." Employees of the Missourian have been documenting radio station use of the paper's stories for several months.

"If they just said, `according to the Southeast Missourian' when they read one of our stories," Lage said, "we would be happy. That's all we want."