Bloggers are regularly called to task by traditional journalists who complain that blogged content can be inaccurate, biased, or out-and-out fabrication. In a turn of the tables, Guido Fawkes’ blog of plots, rumours, and conspiracy has announced the winners in its inaugural Press Plagiarist of the Year Award. The criteria for consideration were straightforward: “a story has to be pinched from an original blog source, either verbatim or in essence, and no credit / payment given to the original source.”

The top award went to Peter Wright, editor of Mail on Sunday for lifting an article in whole from The Policeman’s Blog. Second place went to Marina Hyde, former diarist for the Guardian, who apparently liked enough of what she read on Wonkette and Guido Fawkes’ own site that she copied whole sections verbatim and without attribution.

The winners are both British, which makes sense since the anonymous Mr. Fawkes writes from those shores, but journalists around the world are paying attention. We know this because the Guido Fawke’s site lists the server origins of the most prominent on his front page. Just the first three in the alphabetical list provide a glimpse: Associated Newspapers Ltd, 42 returning visits; Bloomberg Financial Markets, 48 returning visits; British Broadcasting Corporation, 103 returning visits.