It's not a case of journalistic plagiarism, but this story demonstrates that no plagiarist is safe in the age of Google. From a story in the Burlington Free Press:
A staff member for Republican congressional candidate Martha Rainville resigned Monday after evidence surfaced that he had plagiarized other politicians in writing Rainville's policy statements.
Staff member Christopher Stewart, who was in charge of policy research for the Rainville campaign, wrote several policy statements that Rainville said clearly constitute plagiarism.
"I'm just incredibly disappointed," Rainville said.
Stewart declined to comment Monday night other than to say he supports Rainville's campaign.
Rainville said the statements accurately reflect her views on the issues, but she didn't know Stewart had taken the wording from other politicians. The campaign removed the statements from its Web site Monday afternoon and staff members were rewriting them, Rainville said.
The allegations of plagiarism surfaced after a Westminster woman found similarities on the Internet. Julie Waters, a Web designer and musician, said she was researching the race between Rainville and Democrat Peter Welch because she was considering volunteering for the Welch campaign.
Waters said after she came across a blog that pointed out similarities between Rainville's health care policy and a speech by President Bush, she wondered if there were other duplications.
"So, I did Google searches," she said. As a psychology instructor at Community College of Vermont, Waters said she's familiar with how easy it is for students to plagiarize from the Internet, and how easy it is for teachers to catch them by searching for key words...
