PLAGIARISM
What is plagiarism?
Downright
thievery
Is it okay
to plagiarize yourself? Too much of a good thing isn’t so good.
Do not add. This means that
writers of nonfiction should not add to a report things that did not happen.To make news clear and comprehensible, it is often
necessary to subtract or condense. Done without care or responsibility, even such subtraction can distort. We cross a more
definite line into fiction, however, when we. invent or add facts or images or sounds that were not there.
Do not deceive. This means
that journalists should never mislead the public in reproducing events.The implied contract of all nonfiction is binding:
The way it is represented here is, to the best of our knowledge, the way it happened. Anything that intentionally or unintentionally
fools the audience violates that contract and the core purpose of journalism-to get at the truth. Thus, any exception to the
implied contract-even a work of humor or satire-should be transparent or disclosed.
--Roy Peter
Clark, Poynter.org
SLO Tribune -Student accused of plagiarism
8/3/05
By Mark Cornejo --
Cal Poly's student-run newspaper reported that
one of its staff writers plagiarized in articles dating back to the spring quarter.
The writer has since left the Mustang Daily, according
to a front-page report by Editor-in-Chief Dan Watson and Managing Editor Kristen Oato in the July 28-Aug. 3 issue of the paper's
summer publication, the Summer Mustang.
The story did not identify the staff writer. But
the edition published corrections for plagiarism in three articles written by journalism student Rebecca Laman.
Laman declined to comment when contacted by The
Tribune on Tuesday.
"It's something that really distresses me personally,"
said George Ramos, the chairman of the journalism department and adviser for the spring quarter. "Journalists really have
to rely on their reputations and their relationship with readers."
The corrections spelled out paragraphs lifted
from various Web sites in the articles: a profile of the Cal Poly men's barbershop quartet, Men-So Forte; "July Fourth do's
and don'ts" and a movie review of "Fantastic Four."
The Tribune independently confirmed that paragraphs
were lifted from online sources in two of those three stories.
The Mustang Daily reported that the university
was handling punishment.
Ramos declined to say what that entails. But,
he said, "I'm satisfied with what's been done."
The university is prevented from commenting on
the case under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, said Cal Poly spokeswoman Teresa Hendrix.
"As a professional publication, the Mustang Daily
does not tolerate plagiarism," the editors wrote in the front-page report. "Readers can be assured the problem has been dealt
with fully and swiftly."
The school's plagiarism policy in the campus catalog
states, "Cheating or plagiarism in any form is considered a serious violation of expected student behavior and may result
in disciplinary action."
The paper didn't print the staff writer's name,
the story said, because it "is a privacy matter," and "it would not recognize the shared fault of the copy-editing, editorial
process and institution."
Watson said Tuesday that he and his staff had
nothing more to say except that he was proud of the staff members for catching the problem as quickly as they did.
Nishan Havandjian, a Cal Poly journalism professor
and the Summer Mustang's faculty adviser, declined to comment.
The newspaper will move on, Ramos said, and he's
confident his students learned from the experience.
"The students of the current staff have been sent
a message that this kind of behavior, this kind of reporting, this kind of writing is not tolerated if it doesn't meet acceptable
journalism standards," he said.
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http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031784694532
Ethics Case: We Erred,
and Now We Are Taking Action
|
BY LOUISE SEALS
TIMES-DISPATCH
MANAGING EDITOR |
Aug 28, 2005 |
|
Style Weekly cover from Dec. 22, 2004 (left), and Metro Business cover from Aug.
22. |
|
You can see for yourself that our Metro Business cover photo Monday
about a Richmond-area candy company copied the Style Weekly cover of December 22.
We conducted a review after the similarity in the covers was brought
to our attention late Monday afternoon.
We learned that the photographer had seen the Style photo while at the
candy company, and was told of the similarity, but submitted the picture anyway as original work. That is visual plagiarism
and that is why we have dismissed the photographer.
Our review also found troublesome similarities between the Metro Business
article and Style's that raised questions about several newsroom processes.
The Metro Business article was written by a summer intern who has since
returned to college. She should have received more guidance and editing on this story -- a journalistic version of tough love,
if you will -- than she got.
I spoke with her Thursday, and she said she learned a lot from this
experience. We have, too.
- The editing was cursory throughout, from the
photo editing to the copy editing. Hindsight is wonderful, but a pattern of careful editing could have uncovered some clues.
For instance, one photo was strikingly different from all the others shot for the assignment. Historical background was unusually
detailed for this type of article.
- WE ARE changing the way we introduce our interns
to the newsroom. When they arrive, we will do more than hand them a copy of our Guidelines for Professional Conduct. We will
talk about the Guidelines with them, with emphasis on integrity and intellectual honesty.
- We are reassessing the practice of handing out
a clipping of an entire article as background for an assignment. Isn't giving a clip of even one of our own articles just
increasing the chance a journalist will lean on it too much?
- We were already revising our Guidelines for Professional
Conduct. But we need to be more specific about not copying the work of others, whether verbal or visual, and about giving
credit for ideas that we think are good enough to imitate.
And we need to talk more about ethics in general. One question that
arose was: Is there such a thing as visual plagiarism? Some reporters and editors were not familiar with photojournalists'
ethical standards, and we need to foster communications to increase understanding.
"THIS IS ABOUT us" and our standards, a copy editor said during a newsroom
discussion last week. He was right.
In the future, if anyone on our staff ever gets wind of something like
this, we want it to be second nature to say, "Wait a minute! You can't do that! We don't do that!"
Contact Louise Seals at
(804) 649-6301 or lseals@timesdispatch.com.
******************************
To our readers : from Julia Wallace – Editor, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Two articles carrying the byline of an
Atlanta Journal-Constitution staff writer included passages that were copied without attribution from other newspapers; the
passages were represented as the result of our staff writer's work, but they were not. The passages, one in 2005 and one in
2004, quote Daytona Beach, Fla.,
area residents and race fans before and during the Daytona 500 race. The staff writer, Al Levine, did not talk to those people.
The information in this year's story was taken from the Daytona Beach News-Journal. The information from the 2004 story was
taken from the Orlando Sentinel. These are clear violations of the paper's journalistic standards. We apologize to our readers.
The reporter regrets his actions, apologizes and has resigned.
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