Tuesday, July 06, 2004

A reader alerted me to Jack Shafer's Slate column  on a NYT reporter who lifted from the Wall Street Journal last month. Shafer writes: An editor who tells a reporter to chase a competitor's scoop may want the reporter to come back with a similar story—but ye gods!, he never expects his reporter to actually grab the competition's story, cut a piece out, and insert it in his own, as a story appearing under the byline of New York Times reporter Kenneth N. Gilpin appears to have done last month. The transgression has gone unnoticed in the press. Shafer puzzles over what caused the veteran reporter to "nip Journal copy and tuck it into his copy." I think some veteran reporters consider those little nips and tucks legit tricks of the trade. As I  noted in my July 1 post, I do not know whether plagiarism is more prevalent in newsrooms today than it was 15 or 20 years ago. I have had private conversations with current and former journalists who think there are some gray areas where writers and editors may feel slight wording alterations save them. The string of high-profile plagiarism incidents and subsequent commentary should clear up that confusion.   9:44:22 AM     comment []

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