There seems to be a run on plagiarism as 2005 comes to a close. Earlier this week we broke the Cox News incident and then the New York Times ran an Editor's Note yesterday that admits one of its reporters "inadvertently" plagiarized two paragraphs of an article from Travel + Leisure magazine.
An article in The Arts on Monday described the films of the Israeli director Amos Gitai, the subject of a retrospective by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. It included two paragraphs, about Mr. Gitai's background and goals, that were virtually identical to a passage in an article by Michael Z. Wise in the August issue of Travel + Leisure magazine.
The Times reporter, who had portions of the electronic version of Mr. Wise's article in his computer, inadvertently mingled them with his own notes from an interview with Mr. Gitai, and then used some of them in the Times article without attribution. The material from the magazine should have been credited to it.
As FishBowlNY astutely points out, the Editor's Note declines to name the reporter in question. The reporter happens to be one the paper's stars, Steve Erlanger. The standard format for a Times' correction does not call for the reporter to be mentioned by name. Even the Times lengthy Editor's Note on its incorrect WMD reporting declined to name names. Not listing the offending reporter in a correction is pretty standard across most newspapers (though a name is usually mentioned when it is a columnist who erred).
But an incident of plagiarism should be treated differently. Obviously, the Times accepts Erlanger's explanation of what happened, and therefore likely chose to spare him any embarrassment. Perhaps this was just a simple, one-time lapse. But the question is, how does the Times know that for sure? Did they examine a selection of his previous work to check for plagiarism? Did they review his notes? The Editor's Note makes it seem as though Erlanger was asked about the passages, gave his response, and the matter was closed. If more of an investigation was done, the Times should help its cause by offering details. We'll let FishBowlNY beat our drum on why it's especially important for the Times to meet a high level of disclosure:
It feels like a tired refrain but I'm gonna say it anyway: in a period where the Times has come under fire for the quality of reporting and skirting issues of accountability,* it is even more important to be vigilant about explicitly taking responsibility, which in this case includes Stephen Erlanger's name. That extra bit of transparency does make a difference.
Yes, it does feel like a tired refrain; but that's because no one seems to be listening. And these kind of credibility-questioning incidents keep happening. And this is true not just at the Times. In fact, this incident is exactly the same as one at The Gazette in Montreal back in July. Read about it here. One of the paper's marquee columnists and editorial board members, Janet Bagnall, was caught plagiarizing (from the Times, in fact) and her explanation was exactly the same as Erlanger's:
In my column of July 13 on the Bush administration's position on the Kyoto Protocol, "U.S. city shows benefits of going green," I used several paragraphs of text from a July 3 column by the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
My use of the paragraphs, which listed steps taken by Portland, Ore., to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, as well as a quote from the mayor of Portland, was inadvertent.
I had printed out Kristof's column in the same text type as The Gazette's, along with other information, including notes I had made several weeks earlier based on the original source both Kristof and I consulted, a June 2005 progress report on Portland's action plan.
Writing my column, I thought I was transcribing my own notes, when in fact I transcribed his fact summary and quote.
However unintentional, an incident such as this can damage the credibility of the newspaper, of which I am mindful. I apologize to Nicholas Kristof, to my colleagues at The Gazette, and to my readers.
Pardon our skepticism, but how can a writer not distinguish their work from that of someone else? Although it seems as though this kind of mistake is plausible, there is something about the excuse that rings hollow. It's also interesting to note that the Gazette handed out a punishment and the Times did not. An Editor's Note in the Gazette said, "In this case, Bagnall has been formally reprimanded and her column will not appear for several weeks."
At the time we questioned exactly what this"reprimand" entailed, and were puzzled as to why the paper declined to say whether she would still sit on the editorial board. We also wondered if the paper had taken the time to examine some of her previous work to rule out a pattern of behavior. These questions are still valid -- for both the Gazette and New York Times.
