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Ms. Dowd Has Some 'Splainin' To Do.

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Fenian_Bastard, May 17, 2009.

  1. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    My prediction is Mo will resign from the Times "to pursue other interests."

    She'll probably mud-wrestle Cokie Roberts over her job in an ABC PPV.
     
  2. Bud_Bundy

    Bud_Bundy Well-Known Member

    http://www.nytco.com/press/ethics.html

    20. Staff members or outside contributors who plagiarize betray our fundamental pact with our public. So does anyone who knowingly or recklessly provides false information or doctored images for publication. We will not tolerate such behavior.
     
  3. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    In this post-Jayson Blair world of the NYT, I don't see how Mo survives this.
     
  4. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Just a mild case of devil's advocate. ... I am not excusing the laziness of lifting the guy's paragraph, but I am reading all the indignation on here and wondering if most of you have a "degrees of plagiarism" continuum in your head -- which I think I do. I know someone will respond that stealing is stealing and it degrade's people's trust and it's a slippery slope, but this was lifting a throwaway paragraph (language lifting) that anyone else on here who has done any editorial or opinion writing might have read and just rewritten if they liked the thought. It doesn't rise anywhere near a Stephen Glass or a Jayson Blair type of sophistry, where a writer is making up stories or making up facts or quotes or creating people who don't really exist. And it isn't lifting quotes or a whole column from someone. Her lifting the guy's language is a joke, and was so unnecessary, and as Fenian said, she has some 'splainin to do, but just how big a deal should lifting something that meaningless be on the list of misdeeds?
     
  5. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Kind of what I just posted. But this was my point. How can anyone compare to this to Jayson Blair? Even if it is the NY Times.

    This stuff gets caught quite a bit, I think, and usually it gets swept under the rug, doesn't it?
     
  6. I understand what you're getting at, because I myself have often wondered, when writing about an old game, "How many ways can you write, 'He scored on 4th-and-2 from the 1." But I think this goes beyond that. It's a long sentence, lifted word for word from another columnist. Then, instead of saying she cut and pasted it and meant to attribute it, but didn't get back to it - entirely plausible - she went into typical Mo mode and huffed about how she hadn't even read the initial column and was just repeating a point a friend had made at one of her D.C. cocktail parties.
     
  7. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    I'm on the same page regarding that, Waylon. Her excuse made it even worse. She should have just copped to being lazy and taken the reputation hit. Caught red handed is caught red handed.
     
  8. I Digress

    I Digress Guest

    Agreed. Her career there? Over. Her career in general? Just fine.
     
  9. Guy_Incognito

    Guy_Incognito Well-Known Member

    Again, I bet she walks.
     
  10. shockey

    shockey Active Member

    agreed.
     
  11. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    Well, when was the last time she wrote anything that was good?
     
  12. Ragu --
    I think you're right in re: Glass and Blair. Those cases were sui generis. (Glass made up people and quotes and then got people to pose as the people he made up to cover himself.) This, though, rises to a herculean level of laziness. You've got the prime piece of real estate in all of print journalism, and you do something like this? Jesus, give it up to someone who really wants to do it. The "sliding scale" notion, I believe, is sound.
     
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