Fla. St. beat writer resigns amid plagiarism charges.

[Double Down]

Does anyone know of instances where someone is fired or resigns over plagiarism who gets another job in journalism? Mike Barnicle is the only one I can think of. I'm sure there are more.

I know of plenty of instances where someone was busted for plagiarism, but never fired or it was never made public and they went on to reach great heights in this business.

Are we limiting this to plagiarism?

Because I can give you one in the category of fabrication, which I think is worse than plagiarism: Michael Finkel.

A wunderkind at age 33, fired by the NYT Magazine after concocting a composite character out of three slaves in Africa.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/5740/

Resurrected by National Geographic in 2007, and actually was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for a piece on malaria.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2007/07/the_return_of_michael_finkel.html

Is likely to be in contention for another National Magazine Award for this piece in GQ this year.

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201409/the-last-true-hermit

 

[Doc Holliday]

But made up stories are so feel-good that you just don't care it's all a lie.

 

[MiselisM]

A quick little side note: She is a Newhouse/Syracuse alum. I'm a current student at Newhouse, and I recognized the name. Sure enough I gave her a search and saw that she graduated from the masters program not too long ago. She was at a Newhouse panel hosted this past spring. My friend said his Newhouse professor told the class today to look up Natalie Pierre, and that they'll be spending the next class talking about the situation. Not good.

 

[TarHeelMan]

I can see Winston doing this on a course paper!

 

[boundforboston]

Have they replaced her?

 

[Doc Holliday]

Have they replaced her?

Why don't you apply?

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

She's still tweeting about FSU-Wake and covering the game for her website:

http://www.nataliepierre.com/

Not sure if she's at the game, though.

6

(you people are slipping)

 

[Moderator1]

She is now something called Senior SEC Writer at the Alabama Media Group.

Pretty nice landing spot

 

[steveu]

A classic case of falling up the stairs, or so it sounds.

 

[disgruntledgrunt]

ha

 

[Fran Curci]

That's amazing. Sounds like a much better job than the Democrat. Unless she is not really on staff at Al.com?

 

[BigRed]

A classic case of falling up the stairs, or so it sounds.

Lane Kiffin would be proud of the way this girl failed upward. Apparently this industry doesn't take plagiarism as seriously as it should, or as seriously as it once did.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Everybody is too cheap to hire a lawyer and sue now. Rather just let it quietly go away and everyone will forget it ever happened.

Pitiful she could land a better job that fast. Then again, it's probably some horse**** gig with a trumped up title that doesn't pay ****. I mean, seriously, how do we know she is actually better off? I doubt it.

 

[Moderator1]

They have to know. Right?

 

[2underpar]

I think some of the people on staff know.

 

[Moderator1]

How about the brass, the people who made the hire?

 

[nubyjas_wilborn]

They would have to know. A simple Google search would bring it up. It made deadspin, she discussed it on her blog & social media. Her editor wrote an open letter addressing it and it's too small of an industry for the big wigs not to know. I have to assume they felt she could do a great job there. She'll have a lot of eyes on her so hopefully she does well with the second opportunity.

 

[Starman]

I suspect she's the kind of writer that they, uhhh ahem, didn't have too many of on staff previously.

And I suspect she's the kind of writer that if anything goes wrong, plenty of people in the food chain will be more than happy to dump her overboard in the blink of an eye, with lots of "I told you so's" and "what did you expect?"'s.

See, if they just hired a normal "person like that," they could run into some big PR problems when and if they decide to pull the plug on her. But this PARTICULAR writer is walking through the door on Double Secret Probation from day one.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

I suspect she's the kind of writer that they, uhhh ahem, didn't have too many of on staff previously.

And I suspect she's the kind of writer that if anything goes wrong, plenty of people in the food chain will be more than happy to dump her overboard in the blink of an eye, with lots of "I told you so's" and "what did you expect?"'s.

See, if they just hired a normal "person like that," they could run into some big PR problems when and if they decide to pull the plug on her. But this PARTICULAR writer is walking through the door on Double Secret Probation from day one.

You also have to remember who hired her.

 

[Riptide]

Giving her a "senior" title must do wonders for credibility and morale.