Colo. intern finds out you can't just copy & paste the NYT archive

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

University of Florida student...hmm. Hope Urban doesn't get blamed for this.

The thing that bugs me - is that I've seen more than a few younger journos come in and well, been pissed when I've heard editors gush about their work or heard about where their next stop was in their career. I don't know if any cheated, created stuff, made up quotes, but if I were to start the career over I think I'd worry less about "doing the right thing" and more about "how do I get to the next level?" They aren't mutally exclusive, but if it was a tie - the tie would go to moving up and out.

 

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

Whenever this occurs, it staggers me.

 

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

Actually, it probably was. Now she can switch majors and go into a field with a more promising future.

 

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

I am very far from you, but I still feel the burn.

I'm gonna start a blog! And get paid nothing, for the time being, for the content within.

Maybe Amazon will condescend to carry me, and hold all licensing for me, through a Kindle.

 

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

I'm a high school teacher. It is amazing the number of kids that think copying someone else's work is just fine.

They don't see anything ethically wrong with cheating, plagarism, whatever. There was a study done recently that said a majority of HS students in the U.S. sees no ethical problem with cheating. (this is what the emphasis on "group work" and the younger generation's constant access to the Internet has given us).

Now, as journalists, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard, but under pressure, we all revert back to our bad habits & crutches (the best among us overcome the bad habits). Those that got through school hitting Ctrl-C on online articles, tweaking the sentences the teacher is likely to check, and submitting them as their own work, are going to try to skate through a tight spot professionally by doing the same thing.

I give the "if you plagarize, you get a zero" speech to my students before every paper. And it never fails -- four or five students will turn in papers that older siblings did, nine or 10 will go to some online essay site or just go to wikipedia and copy/past vast swaths of the entries and turn them in as their own work. And they get zeroes for the assignment, and then wonder what they did wrong.

It's unfortunate, but we *really* have to push hard the expected ethics of journalists, because quite a few members of today's younger generation don't know where the line is.

 

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

I had a community columnist try to pull this on me a month ago. Wrote a 700-word opus on the history of his sport. I figured it out while editing it, it never made it to print and I lit into him pretty harsh while telling him he'd never write for us again.

It's a given that anyone wanting to make a career in journalism should know better, but What about regular blokes off the street? I was taught not to plagiarize in elementary school, so it's not a good enough excuse if you're not a professional writer.

 

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

I'm shocked - shocked, I say! - that you've yet to be threatened with a lawsuit from a parent who is irate that you dared give innocent little Johnny a zero for that work on which he spent SO much time. Don't you realize what that will do to his future?!?!?!?!? :

 

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

That RMM *expletive* in the comments is pissing me off.

 

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

Didn't know Jayson Blair had a kid in college.














Zing!

 

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

In my high school teaching days -- not that long ago -- school policy was plagiarism on a paper was not only a zero on the assignment, but you failed the semester. Still had a few students try it and fail. One student failed a semester because of it, then pulled the same thing when he was retaking the class the next year... and used the exact same plagiarized paper. Not a rocket surgeon, that one.

 

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

It's too bad she is stupid. She can write.

 

Re: Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-Z the NYT archive

re: thread title

Don't you mean "Colo. intern finds out you can't just Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V the NYT archive"?

Why would the intern want to "undo" the NYT archive?

Just wondering ... 8)