Chapter 9: Stolen Words, Invented Facts Or Worse

Chapter 9: Stolen Words, Invented Facts … or Worse

Author’s Recommendation

A Manual on Curbing Plagiarism and Fabrication

Telling the Truth and Nothing But was created in 2013 by the National Summit to Fight Plagiarism and Fabrication. The effort was led by the American Copy Editors Society and was supported by nine other journalism organizations, 14 media companies, and 10 journalism-education institutions. The free 71-page e-book can be downloaded at:

Plagiarism

Norman P. Lewis, “Plagiarism antecedents and situational influences,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 2, Summer 2008, 313-330. (Academic databases)

Roy Peter Clark, “The unoriginal sin,” originally written for the March 1983 issue of Washington Journalism Review (now American Journalism Review). “The unoriginal sin” was posted on Poynter in July 2000:

Leonard Pitts Jr., “Chris Cecil, plagiarism gets you fired,” The Miami Herald, June 3, 2005.

Roy Peter Clark, “Why we should stop criminalizing practices that are confused with plagiarism,” Poynter, March 27, 2013. Clark says, “[S]erious acts of literary theft have been missed up with trivial ones. Carelessness has been mislabeled as corruption.”

Marc Fisher, “Steal this idea: Why plagiarize when you can rip off a writer’s thoughts?,” Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 2015. In a wide-ranging analysis of the topic, Fisher explores the profession’s reluctance to define plagiarism and questions “why we are stricter about the use of someone else’s words than we are about claiming his ideas.”

Benjamin Mullin, “Is it original? An editor’s guide to identifying plagiarism,” Poynter, Sept. 16, 2014. Mullin offers a checklist.

Center for Social Media, School of Communication, American University, Set of Principles in Fair Use for Journalism, 2013. A guide for journalists, including interactive case examples. From the introduction: “This Set of Principles reduces risk of copyright infringement by clarifying professional community standards. Itidentifies six situations in which journalists routinely employ fair use, and what its limitations are: incidental capture; proof; use in cultural journalism; illustration; historical reference; and to foster public discussion.This Set of Principles was created by journalists convened bychapters of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Online News Association, as well as in some cases the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. In 10 cities nationwide, they conducted 17 meetings, facilitated by Profs. Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi of American University.” Access the booklet at:

Emma Mustich, “Salon Debate: What is plagiarism?,” Salon, Jan. 10, 2012. A panel discusses definitions.

Edward Wasserman, “What is ‘original’ journalism anyway?,” The Miami Herald, May 30, 2005.

Trudy Lieberman, “Plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize … only be sure to always call it research,” Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1995. (Academic databases)

Jonathan Bailey, Plagiarism Today. A website dedicated to reporting on plagiarism online.

Fabrication

John Hersey, “The legend on the license,” The Yale Review, Vol. 70, 1980, 1-25. “[T]here is one sacred rule of journalism. The writer must not invent. The legend on the license must read: NONE OF THIS WAS MADE UP.” (Academic databases)

Chip Scanlan, “The first peril: fabrication,” Poynter, Aug. 23, 2002. The Poynter Institute scholar revisits Hersey’s legend on the license.

The Smoking Gun, “A million little lies: Exposing James Frey’s fiction addiction,” Jan. 8, 2006. The debunking of Frey’s supposedly nonfiction memoir, A Million Little Pieces, which had been selected for Oprah Winfrey’s book club and had become a bestseller.

Cautionary Examples of Plagiarism and Fabrication

Janet Cooke:

Janet Cooke, “Jimmy’s world: 8-year-old heroin addict lives for a fix,” The Washington Post, Sept. 28, 1980. The article in which Cooke told the story of Jimmy, who proved to be a fabricated character. (News databases)

Bill Green, “The reporter: When she smiled, she dazzled; when she crashed …”, The Washington Post, April 19, 1981. The ombudsman’s detailed report on Cooke’s fabrication. (News databases)

After Jimmy’s World: Tightening Up In Editing (New York: The National News Council, 1981), 16-25.

Mike Sager, “The fabulist who changed journalism,” Columbia Journalism Review, Spring 2016. In this look back at the case, Sager writes: “Cooke’s transgressions rocked the foundations of trust the press had built since the post-World War II blossoming of the information age.”

Stephen Glass:

Buzz Bissinger, “Shattered Glass,” Vanity Fair, September 1998. About the Stephen Glass case.

Lori Robertson, “Shattered Glass at The New Republic,” American Journalism Review, June 1998.

Howard Kurtz, “Stephen Glass waits for prime time to say ‘I lied’,” The Washington Post, May 7, 2003.

Eugene Volokh, “Court denies Stephen Glass admission to the California bar,” The Washington Post, Jan. 27, 2014.

Ann Reilly Dowd, “The Great Pretender: How a writer fooled his readers,” Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1998. (Academic databases)

Hanna Rosin, “Hello, my name is Stephen Glass, and I’m sorry,” The New Republic, Nov. 10, 2014. Rosin is a former colleague and “best friend” of Glass. She wrote this article for a review of the magazine’s history on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of its founding.

Benjamin Mullin, “Stephen Glass says he’s repaid $200,000 to 4 magazines,” Poynter, March 29, 2016.

Patricia Smith:

Sinéad O’Brien, “Secrets and lies,” American Journalism Review, September 1998.

Patricia Smith, “A note of apology,” TheBoston Globe, June 16, 1998. (LexisNexis Academic)

Mike Barnicle:

Sinéad O’Brien, “For Barnicle, one controversy too many,” American Journalism Review, September 1998.

Matthew V. Storin, “Some practical advice from a crisis-buffeted editor,” included in Robert H. Giles, Ed., “Media mistakes of ’98,” a booklet published by the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center.

Jayson Blair:

“Times reporter who resigned leaves long trail of deception,” The New York Times, May 11, 2003. The Times’ investigation of Jayson Blair’s reporting.

Jacques Steinberg, “Times reporter resigns after questions on article,” The New York Times, May 2, 2003.About the Jayson Blair case.

Howard Kurtz, “Reporter resigns over copied story,” The Washington Post, May 2, 2003. (LexisNexis Academic)

Jill Rosen, “All about the retrospect,” American Journalism Review, June/July 2003. “Jayson Blair charmed and dazzled the right people on his rapid rise from cocky college student to New York Times national reporter. But he left plenty of clues about the serious problems that lay below the surface.”

Margaret Sullivan, “Repairing the credibility cracks,” The New York Times, May 4, 2013. The Times’ public editor reviews the case 10 years later.

Jack Kelley:

Blake Morrison, “Ex-USA Today reporter faked major stories,” USA Today, March 21, 2004. USA Today’s investigation of Jack Kelley.

Bill Hilliard, Bill Kovach and John Seigenthaler, “The problems of Jack Kelley and USA Today,” a memorandum to publisher Craig Moon, published in USA Today, April 22,2004.

Jonathan Lehrer:

Jim Romenesko, “Jonah Lehrer’s NewYorker.com ‘Smart people’ post borrows from earlier WSJ piece,” Jimromenesko.com, June 19, 2012.

Joe Coscarelli, “New Yorker writer Jonah Lehrer plagiarizes himself repeatedly,” NYmag.com, June 19, 2012.

Jennifer Schuessler, “Lehrer apologizes for recycling work, while New Yorker says it won’t happen again,” The New York Times, June 20, 2012.

Jon Friedman, “New Yorker editor: Lehrer won’t be exiled,” MarketWatch, June 21, 2012.

Michael Moynihan, “Jonah Lehrer’s deceptions,” Tablet, July 30, 2012.

Julie Bosman, “Jonah Lehrer resigns from The New Yorker after making up Dylan quotes for his book,” The New York Times, July 30, 2012.

Leslie Kaufman, “Publisher pulls a 2nd book by Lehrer, ‘How We Decide’,” The New York Times, March 1, 2013.

Charles Seife, “Jonah Lehrer’s journalistic misdeeds at Wired.com,”Slate, Aug. 31, 2012.

Evan Hanson, “Violations of editorial standards found in WIRED writer’s blog,” Wired.com, Aug. 31, 2012.

Rem Rieder, “Jonah Lehrer’s echo chamber,” American Journalism Review, June/July 2012.

David Carr, “Journalists dancing on the edge of truth,” The New York Times, Aug. 19, 2012.

Cases in Which Journalists Broke the Law

R. Foster Winans:

R. Foster Winans, Trading Secrets(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986).

Mike Gallagher:

Bruce W. Sanford, “Chiquita lesson: Libel isn't weapon of choice,” The American Editor, Oct. 15, 1998; updated May 20, 1999. (Academic databases)

Nicholas Bender, “Damage report: After the Chiquita story,” Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 2001. (Academic databases)

Alicia C. Shepard, “Bitter fruit: How The Cincinnati Enquirer’s hard-hitting investigation of Chiquita Brands International unraveled,” American Journalism Review, September 1998.

Gannett Blog, “Cincy: ‘Chiquita’ reporter’s record expunged,” July 24, 2012.

Cameron McWhirter, “Saved by the shield,” Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 2008. This retrospective was written by a reporter who contributed to The Cincinnati Enquirer’s 1998 story about Chiquita but who was not involved in intercepting the recordings of voicemails between Chiquita executives. In the ensuing investigation, McWhirter successfully invoked Ohio’s shield law in order to protect his own confidential sources.

Phone-hacking scandal in U.K.

Don Van Atta Jr, Jo Becker, and Graham Bowley, “Tabloid hack attack on royals, and beyond,” The New York Times, Sept. 1, 2010.

Nick Davies and Amelia Hill, “Missing Milly Dowler’s voicemail was hacked by News of the World,” The Guardian, July 4, 2011.

Nick Davies, “Phone hacking: Glenn Mulcaire blames ‘relentless pressure’ by NoW for actions,” The Guardian, July 5, 2011.

Karla Adam and Paul Farhi, “News of the World to close amid phone-hacking scandal,” The Washington Post, July 7, 2011.

Robert Hutton and Alex Morales, “Rupert Murdoch denies knowledge of phone-hacking, vows to ‘clean this up,’ ” Bloomberg News, July 19, 2011.(News databases)

Patrick Wintour and Nick Davies, “Andy Coulson resigns as phone-hacking scandal rocks Downing Street,” The Guardian, Jan. 21, 2011.

BBC News, “Andy Coulson jailed for 18 months over phone hacking,” July 4, 2014.

Rem Rieder, “A guilty verdict for sleazy journalism,” USA Today, June 24, 2014.

William R. Davie, “Narrative exemplars and lessons learned from the News of the World’s demise,” Media Ethics Magazine, Fall 2011.

The Week, “Rupert Murdoch's phone-hacking scandal,” April 4, 2012. A timeline of the scandal, with links to news coverage of specific developments.

Setting and Enforcing Standards

Jack Shafer, “The Romenesko effect: How a one-man Web site is improving journalism,” Slate.

[In November 2010, Romenesko left Poynterand started his own site: jimromenesko.com. Related: Mark Lisheron, “Romenesko roars back,” American Journalism Review, August/September 2012.

Jill Rosen, “We mean business,” American Journalism Review, June/July 2004.

After a series of cases involving fabrication and plagiarism, the nation's newspapers sought to stiffen their defenses against ethical lapses.

Lori Robertson, “Confronting the culture,” American Journalism Review, August 2005.

The culprit behind the recurring clusters of plagiarism and fabrication scandals isn’t just irresponsible youth or a few bad apples or the temptations of the Internet. It may be the newsroom culture itself.

Craig Silverman, “Why newsrooms don’t use plagiarism detection services,” Mediashift, March 23, 2010.

Silverman, “4 warning signs that a promising young writer may be developing dangerous habits,” Poynter, Aug. 1, 2012. Silverman lists the warning signs: pressure to produce more content, sloppy sourcing, massaging quotes, and tinkering with anecdotes to make them perfect examples.

Roy Peter Clark, “How to protect against journalism malpractice,” Poynter, Aug. 2, 2012. Clark proposes a plagiarism and fabrication detection system in which a new reporter is told during orientation: “At random, some of your stories will be run through plagiarism detection software. In addition, at least once a year – more often if we have suspicions – an editor will be assigned to check the facts, scenes, and sources in your story.”

Point of View: When There Is Unanimity, Ask Questions

A plea for skeptical editing by Reid MacCluggage, retired editor and publisher of The Day in New London, Conn. [See separate file in this folder.]