Two weeks ago, I wrote about a case of possible plagiarism in a Star Tribune editorial in early November that included phrases identical or very similar to a piece by Hendrik Hertzberg in the New Yorker magazine.
At that point, editorial page editor Susan Albright said an investigation concluded the writer acted unintentionally, confusing Hertzberg’s words with his notes. She said it was a personnel issue she was precluded from discussing further. That left me unable to tell readers what the consequences were and to check for plagiarism in previous work.
Since then, the revelation of a second editorial with similarities to a Hertzberg piece that was written by the same editorial writer has significantly heightened the newspaper’s response. On Thursday, Albright published a note disclosing the editorials were the work of editorial writer Steve Berg, who will not be writing until a review of his previous editorials is completed. Berg said he wasn’t able to comment because of the review underway.
Similarities between a Berg editorial on March 27 and a Hertzberg piece that ran in the March 6 New Yorker magazine provoked that review. Both pieces argued for Electoral College reform and some of the similarities are in how the argument is framed. Albright said both pieces seemed to draw on language in reports by advocacy groups for Electoral College reform that has insinuated itself into public discussion on the topic. Phrases such as “a more perfect union” and “spectator states” appeared in both pieces, but also in other commentaries.
“The Electoral College is enshrined in the Constitution itself,” Hertzberg wrote. Berg wrote “given the Constitution’s enshrinement of the Electoral College.” Not close enough to prompt a review on its own, the March editorial still contained enough similarity to provoke the probe of Berg’s other writing in light of the similarities in the November editorial.
The review, which began Thursday, is being conducted by a team working with Sandy Date, director of news research, and Rob Daves, director of strategic research. Their charge is to examine the body of Berg’s work since January 2006 and determine if there are further similarities with other writers’ work. “We’ve been asked to move very quickly, but we’ve also been told the quality and accuracy of our work is paramount,” Daves said.
While the review may resolve this case, it’s not the end of what the newspaper needs to do to reduce the chance of this happening again. Albright said she and editor Anders Gyllenhaal have discussed the need for clear guidelines on sound practices for compiling and attributing information.
To that end, I’ve continued working with Brenda Rotherham, recruiting and training manager, on the seminar I mentioned in the last column about preventing plagiarism and fabrication. Kris Bunton, chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of St. Thomas, and John Borger, an attorney who often works on First Amendment issues, have agreed to participate.
During the two years I’ve been in this job, several times readers have pointed out what appears to them to be plagiarism by reporters and metro columnists. Sometimes, but not always, the allegations come from those who disagree with a columnist’s political views and know a plagiarism charge that sticks can severely damage a career.
I work with managing editor Scott Gillespie to investigate them, no matter what the motivation. So far, we haven’t found a case involving writers in the newsroom that clearly qualified as plagiarism, although one writer was warned in 2005 about sloppy attribution.
I can see why readers’ suspicions are sometimes raised. In one instance, a metro columnist interviewed a source another writer also interviewed. Similarities in the column and the other writer’s piece stemmed from a source with a well-rehearsed, oft-repeated story, not plagiarism.
Recently a critic at another newspaper suggested a Star Tribune critic copied phrases from a review he had written. The two reviews were sprinkled with similar phrases and quotes. But when Gillespie, who is continuing to look into it, fed those phrases into a Google search along with the title of the work, it became clear those phrases had worked their way into reviews by numerous critics at other newspapers. Strange as that situation is, it doesn’t appear to be plagiarism.
The stakes have never been higher for newspapers’ credibility. Some talk radio and blog commentators eager to win over newspaper readers and the advertising dollars that follow them delight in exploiting accusations of unethical behavior by journalists.
But others raise legitimate issues. It’s important for newspapers to resist becoming so jaded about the partisan edges of so much media criticism that they fail to act on serious questions about ethics.
Then factor in the ease the Internet has brought to making publications worldwide available at the click of a mouse, exploding the amount of information at our fingertips and also making it easier than ever to sniff out plagiarism.
In that atmosphere, the last thing this newspaper should do is hand eager critics more ammo to keep firing away at problems resulting from sloppy research and writing.
If all of that still isn’t enough to make every writer in the building appropriately obsessive and even a bit paranoid about annotating notes and meticulously attributing words that didn’t originate in their brains, it should be. Here’s a quick preview of a core lesson from that upcoming seminar: Plagiarism embarrasses the whole journalistic community and can derail promising careers.
