Thursday, March 17, 2011

Seriously, don't plagiarize!

Or you may end up like this reporter for the Washington Post, fired for copying material from someone else's story.

3 comments:

  1. if only this guy were the first it might not be so sad. but as a new yorker i remember all too well when "we" the new york times readers found out our stories were either fabricated or lifted from other newspapers. for these crooked "journalists" defense though- i would refer anyone interested to ralph waldo emerson's essay "quoting and originalty" where he says that no idea is original, and that someone who quotes well (which i guess these bad journalists left out) is often better than the original thinker, because he has to rework something that has already been done.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A three month suspension?!? Seriously, I can't believe that's all she's getting! I mean, if this is a cardinal sin, don't you think her career should be over? If the message they want to send is "it's wrong, but don't worry, you'll still have your job at the end of the day," then they accomplished that. But if they want to send the message that this is completely unacceptable, this suspension does not send that message.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I guess it depends what was most important to the post. I mean, she did win a Pulitzer so I'd say that on the whole her reporting is usually quite good and after this her pay will be much less. So if her bosses compared this with the strength and seriousness of the public's outcry against it, then we can at least understand how they came to their decision. Even if we may not agree with it.

    ReplyDelete