Plagiarism or coincidence? Writer, Wall Street Journal square off

YankeeFan · Aug 24, 2013

Who do you believe:

In late July, Daniel Flynn, a conservative author and columnist, submitted an essay to the Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Review called “The War on Football,” which laid out the case against banning the sport at the youth level. Two days later, Flynn was informed that his piece had been turned down.

Two-and-a-half weeks later, on Aug. 17, Flynn went to the Journal’s website and found that the paper had published a column by another author, titled “In Defense of Football,” which included much of the same data presented in the same order and language similar to that presented in his own work.

What followed was a battle between Flynn and the Journal that ultimately resulted in Flynn publicly accusing the Journal and author Max Boot — a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and the Los Angeles Times — of plagiarism. In a column for The American Spectator published Friday, Flynn claimed that Boot’s article “freeloaded” the “research, structure, and ideas” from his work.

Boot and representatives from the Journal deny that charge, and both Boot and his research assistant say they had no knowledge of Flynn or his work until they received inquiries from POLITICO. This was simply an instance of two writers with a similar viewpoint on an issue marshaling the limited set of facts and arguments available to make their case, Boot said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/daniel-flynn-wall-street-journal-plagiarism-95865.html#ixzz2cw0FGQUC
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PCLoadLetter · Aug 24, 2013

YankeeFan said:

Who do you believe:

In late July, Daniel Flynn, a conservative author and columnist, submitted an essay to the Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Review called “The War on Football,” which laid out the case against banning the sport at the youth level. Two days later, Flynn was informed that his piece had been turned down.

Two-and-a-half weeks later, on Aug. 17, Flynn went to the Journal’s website and found that the paper had published a column by another author, titled “In Defense of Football,” which included much of the same data presented in the same order and language similar to that presented in his own work.

What followed was a battle between Flynn and the Journal that ultimately resulted in Flynn publicly accusing the Journal and author Max Boot — a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and the Los Angeles Times — of plagiarism. In a column for The American Spectator published Friday, Flynn claimed that Boot’s article “freeloaded” the “research, structure, and ideas” from his work.

Boot and representatives from the Journal deny that charge, and both Boot and his research assistant say they had no knowledge of Flynn or his work until they received inquiries from POLITICO. This was simply an instance of two writers with a similar viewpoint on an issue marshaling the limited set of facts and arguments available to make their case, Boot said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/daniel-flynn-wall-street-journal-plagiarism-95865.html#ixzz2cw0FGQUC
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I understand Flynn being upset, but it seems pretty clear that Boot is in the clear on this -- anyone writing on the subject would use the same studies and references that their articles shared.

I leave it to others to discuss the ethics of deciding you don't like someone's freelance piece and then commissioning someone else to write the exact same thing for $4k. I suppose you open yourself up to it as a freelancer when you submit a story unsolicited. I will say, though, that the sports editor comes out of this looking like a tool.

waterytart · Aug 24, 2013

Boot has a large body of work. (I have a copy of The Savage Wars of Peace on my pinko bookshelves.) If he plagiarized here, he's probably done it before, and there will be people looking for it now. If they don't find it, the only question is PCLL's: Why did the editor throw the topic to someone else?

YankeeFan · Aug 25, 2013

PCLoadLetter said:

YankeeFan said:

Who do you believe:

In late July, Daniel Flynn, a conservative author and columnist, submitted an essay to the Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Review called “The War on Football,” which laid out the case against banning the sport at the youth level. Two days later, Flynn was informed that his piece had been turned down.

Two-and-a-half weeks later, on Aug. 17, Flynn went to the Journal’s website and found that the paper had published a column by another author, titled “In Defense of Football,” which included much of the same data presented in the same order and language similar to that presented in his own work.

What followed was a battle between Flynn and the Journal that ultimately resulted in Flynn publicly accusing the Journal and author Max Boot — a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and the Los Angeles Times — of plagiarism. In a column for The American Spectator published Friday, Flynn claimed that Boot’s article “freeloaded” the “research, structure, and ideas” from his work.

Boot and representatives from the Journal deny that charge, and both Boot and his research assistant say they had no knowledge of Flynn or his work until they received inquiries from POLITICO. This was simply an instance of two writers with a similar viewpoint on an issue marshaling the limited set of facts and arguments available to make their case, Boot said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/daniel-flynn-wall-street-journal-plagiarism-95865.html#ixzz2cw0FGQUC
Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I understand Flynn being upset, but it seems pretty clear that Boot is in the clear on this -- anyone writing on the subject would use the same studies and references that their articles shared.

I leave it to others to discuss the ethics of deciding you don't like someone's freelance piece and then commissioning someone else to write the exact same thing for $4k. I suppose you open yourself up to it as a freelancer when you submit a story unsolicited. I will say, though, that the sports editor comes out of this looking like a tool.
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Yeah, I don't blame Boot. But the WSJ and their editors both pushed him in a direction that makes it look a lot like plagiarism.

Tucsondriver · Aug 25, 2013

This part stinks:

"Boot, who was in Thailand at the time, was hesitant at first and asked for time to think it over. But Rosen was encouraging, offering $4,000, for 2,000 words, more than a week to write, and editorial guidance from Sam Walker, the Journal’s Sports editor."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/daniel-flynn-wall-street-journal-plagiarism-95865.html#ixzz2cxw989Zz

SoCalScribe · Aug 25, 2013

Editorial guidance?

Must be nice...

silent_h · Aug 25, 2013

What really stinks is how uninformed Sam Walker - the sports editor of a major national journalism operation - appears to be about the issue of brain trauma in football, which is only one of the biggest sports stories of the decade.

Boot agreed to write the piece, and Rosen followed up with one more email in which he copied a “suggestion” from Walker, which contained a strong criticism of the New York Times that Walker asked not be published.
“Another thing he might mention is this absurd concussion lobby, which consists of these researchers in Boston and other assorted grant-grubbing academics and worry warts who are all trying hard to push this nanny state narrative,” Walker wrote. “The quarterback of that team is, of course, the NYT — but we wouldn’t want to mention them in the piece.”
In another note forwarded to Boot, Walker wrote, “[T]here isn’t is any evidence that shows that kids who play up through HS then stop, as 95% of all players do, are any more likely to have lasting health/brain issues. No evidence.”
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Not everything fits into political/philosophical meta-narratives.

The Big Ragu · Aug 26, 2013

I am loathe to say anything bad about the WSJ team, because I really do think there are some good, and honest people there. But Sam Walker needs to stick to fantasy baseball leagues and writing about them. He blew this one with his judgment, and it sounds like Gary Rosen was not entirely above board in his handling of it, and now can't be straight or clean about how wrong this was.

I have been in this situation. In one case in which I dealt with something similar, I pitched a very unique story that was not timely, as this one is. It was evergreen, but a topic that fit well with the style of a particular magazine and I immediately got good feedback from the editor I pitched. I followed up and he stalled me by saying their next editorial meeting was on Day X, but he liked the idea and after the meeting he'd get back to me.

That day came and went and he disappeared on me. When I finally got him to respond, I got a faux apologetic e-mail saying that he hadn't realized they already had a similar story in the works. It defied belief, because unlike this case, what I pitched was not something on people's radar screens, had less of a news peg than a human interest peg, and couldn't possibly have been in the minds of multiple people at the exact same time for the same publication.

When I saw the piece they ran (which was written by someone I consequently found out was a buddy of the a senior editor), they used supporting info I had provided in my pitch, which I crafted to demonstrate that I had done enough to be able to do the piece, but tried not to give away too much.

It really pissed me off, but I decided to move on rather than fight back the same way Flynn did. I was subtle about expressing my disbelief that one of their editors had already had the same idea, but I didn't hurl any outright accusations. If they had written back to me the way the Journal responded to Flynn, it might have been a different story. The non-response / response I got was a tacit admission that they stole my idea and that was that, and I felt that was the best I was going to get out of the situation (at the time, I relied on relationships for work) -- a subtle admission from them (they couldn't come right out and say it).

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Plagiarism or coincidence? Writer, Wall Street Journal square off

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Plagiarism or coincidence? Writer, Wall Street Journal square off

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