On Tuesday, an opinion piece by yours truly made the point that journalistic follow-ups that don’t acknowledge where a story came from threaten to undermine the business models underlying original journalism. The piece used two examples from that day, both involving the ABC. But ABC sources have since told Crikey we weren’t being entirely fair to Stephen Long, the business reporter whose story on the nightly television news centred around the views of George Rozvany, who had been the key source in former Fairfax journalist Michael West’s exclusive investigation released earlier that same day.

Turns out West and Long had spoken of doing stories on Rozvany ages ago, when West was still at the SMH. The idea was anything Long did would run on the same day as West’s piece, to maximise the impact. With that in mind, West introduced the two, and Long interviewed Rozvany last week (rather than, as our piece assumed, in response to West’s story that day). There was no set agreement that the ABC would credit West with having broken the story, as our piece on Tuesday quoted West saying.