You thought it was bad when reporters plagiarized?

Professor steals weekly column from student reporter ... helluva role model!

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iCHPvfeKmhqO4J_mb-g4uPJAXTNQD8SSBS600

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A distinguished University of Missouri-Columbia journalism professor will no longer write a weekly newspaper column after admitting he plagiarized material from a student reporter.

John Merrill, a professor emeritus at the university's School of Journalism, wrote a Sunday column for the Columbia Missourian, a community newspaper affiliated with the school.

His Nov. 4 column about the university's women's and gender studies program used three quotes and other phrases taken directly from an Oct. 5 article in The Maneater, an independent student newspaper, according to the Missourian's executive editor, Tom Warhover.

Warhover disclosed the plagiarism in his own column Sunday. A review of Merrill's earlier work by Missourian editors found five more columns in which at least one quote had been taken from other publications without attribution, Warhover wrote.

 

A guy in my J-school got caught doing this.

 

A student-published paper that comes out on the weekend? Didn't know those existed.

 

Our guy was caught publishing the work that students handed into him for class. A pal of mine was the whistleblower. Guy got canned. We all drank beer.

 

It's OK, though, because he didn't mean to do it ... he just 'forgot' to attribute the source.

In a letter to Missourian editors, Merrill apologized for what he called "unintentional plagiarism."

"Careless, I'll admit, but not intentional," he said. "All these dozens and dozens of columns and some 30 books and innumerable magazine and newspaper articles and never before have I been accused of plagiarism."

 

"Never before have I been accused of plagiarism"

Which could mean he's done it before. Just never been accused.

 

I'd chalk it up to ignorance. How is the guy supposed to know better? Not like he's teaching at a good journalism school or anything.

 

It's not a crime until you get caught... :

 

Not until someone now does more looking into those dozens of columns and 30 books and innumerable magazine and newspaper articles.

 

The funny thing is Merrill has written quite a few books on journalism ethics, and I had always heard his name in relation to being an expert on journalism ethics. Oops.
He's been a professor for close to 60 years so maybe time and age are catching up with the 83-year-old boy.
I'm a Mizzou grad, but I don't think you can defend that in any way, shape or form, especially not after five or six times. If you do it once, maybe you forgot to attribute. You do it five or six times, and it starts to look pretty intentional - in either a malicious or just plain lazy way.

Nice mini Amish beard though

 

Funny... I've been writing for 17 years and I've never "unintentionally plagiarized" anyone...

The guy is a disgrace...