Despite a plug from Jim Romenesko's widely-read blog for overly serious journalists, not a single reporter has stepped up to collect Valleywag's $100 prize for anyone willing to back eWeek editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols' claim that "all reporters" cut and paste whole paragraphs from press releases into their articles without noting it to readers. We don't care that he's lazier than us, but we do find it creepy that Novell publicists are writing parts of eWeek. No biggie, though: Valley workers already claim they knew it all along.

When a reporter gets called out for doing something questionable, such as eWeek senior editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols running Novell press releases as his articles, there's usually at least the appearance of concern at the publication. You know: Whoops, sorry for the misunderstanding. But eWeek has let Vaughan-Nichols dismiss complaints as some sort of grudge by another writer who posted a dozen or so examples of directly cut-and-pasted paragraphs. Grudge or no, what I see is eWeek — whose 400,000-plus readers include a lot of senior tech people I hang out with — publishing statements written by Novell publicists in a way that makes them look like eWeek's independent findings and analysis to me. Vaughan-Nichols claims it's OK: "Like all reporters, I write stories based on press releases." Like all reporters? I'll send a $100 iTunes gift certificate to the first reporter besides Vaughan-Nichols who posts 3 links in the comments to his or her own work, each of which contains at least one paragraph provably lifted without attribution from a press release, to which you must also point. Or heck, just email 3 links to paul@valleywag.com and I'll post 'em for you.