General Journalism question

[Roy Pitchford]

Forgive me for asking, I only had one year of journalism in high school and that was some time ago, but, if you're going to heavily quote another source, shouldn't you cite that you quoted it?

I and a coworker was looking at the article about the Kundtz Estate in the most recent issue of the Observer:
http://lakewoodobserver.com/read/2011/04/05/vintage-lakewood-the-kundtz-estate

We were interested in learning more about it (where it used to be, for example) and in the process, we independently found the Lakewood Historical Society site which is mentioned as being "for more information" in the article.
http://lakewoodhistory.org/kundtz/

A full 3 paragraphs in the middle of the Observer article, accounting for nearly 50% of it, are copied word-for-word right from the Historical Society's website and no citation is provided. Everything from "Theodor Kundtz was born" to "remembered for his many amazing accomplishments."

Did I miss something?

[Valerie Molinski]

The only thing I can think of is that Rhonda Loje wrote both of them as she is fairly active in the Lakewood Historical Society.

[Rhonda loje]

Well.... Roy that would be me...

I write the Vintage Lakewood articles for the Lakewood Observer for the Lakewood Historical Society to promote the Lakewood Historical Society, our Facebook site, Vintage Lakewood and help residents understand the history of their city. I am a member of the Lakewood Historical Society and a volunteer for them. I have been a past Trustee and President of the LHS. This article is done to promote membership and the society.

LHS supplied me with the pictures I placed in the article. I did not think I needed to quote it since I represent LHS as the writer of the article.

I think if you notice as you read the article I talk about about the Lakewood Historical website and even give a link of where to access the information and about the movie that the Lakewood Historical Society director has done with the kids from Grant School about the house also with a link to that site.

The is also a link to ask you to join the Lakewood Historical Society. Maybe you should join?

By the way....I have never claimed to be a journalist...I am a better photographer...but someone needed to write these articles for LHS and LO and I volunteered to do it. If someone else would like to take on this task to submit an article concerning LHS and its Vintage Lakewood Facebook page...please come forward! I will be glad to give up the task to a REAL journalist.

[Roy Pitchford]

Rhonda, I was unaware of your position as a member/volunteer with the LHS and if, as Valerie mentioned, you wrote both, I definitely understand.

I wasn't trying to insinuate anything, simply gain clarification.

You do give the URL, as we both said, however in the context it is written (using the phrase "for more information"), I would not have expected what I saw. If it had read something more along the lines of, "this text and more is available at..." it would have been much more clear.

I'm no journalist either, nor do I claim to be one, I only have those vague memories of a single journalism class my senior year of high school.