In addition to staff writers, The Courant uses writers on a free-lance basis. They often offer a certain expertise, whether it’s about wine or the anatomy of words. Their association with the paper is on a per-story basis. But whether writers are free-lancers or on staff, they are expected to abide by the same ethical standards.
Last Sunday, the editor of Northeast magazine, Jenifer Frank, explained in a note to readers that free-lance food writer Karen Mamone’s work would no longer appear in The Courant because “editors found plagiarized material while editing two columns.” Neither column – submitted months apart – appeared in the newspaper. Mamone’s work also will no longer appear on ctnow.com.
One question circulating in the newsroom last week was: How do you plagiarize a recipe? Evidently, it was more than a recipe.
“What was plagiarized were the histories of recipes, nearly word for word,” Frank said. “In some cases, the actual descriptions of the food or drink, again, word for word, and the entire structure of columns – which followed structurally, paragraph by paragraph, the websites that were being plagiarized. There was far more to a Mamone column than the recipe, which, of course, was why she was so popular for so long.”
Another, perhaps more important, question involved The Courant’s policy on plagiarism and the penalty for the breach. The policy – now in the proposal phase, but understood – is: Don’t do it. Punishment is on a case-by-case basis and includes discipline up to and including termination.
I think we all understand what “it” is. Webster’s dictionary is pretty clear about it: Plagiarizing is “to take the ideas, writings, etc., from another and pass them off as one’s own.” That means taking quotes, sentences or paragraphs from any source – a book, a newspaper article, the wire services, a website – without crediting the source.
Yes, there are degrees. Some argue that incorporating general history – even verbatim – into a column is much less of an offense than placing your byline on someone else’s enterprising reporting, quotes and all. I’ll even concede that plagiarism can happen accidentally – the first time – in the rush to deadlines. And perhaps the act is more of an affront to the profession than to readers, who know reporters get their information from somewhere but may not care where.
But plagiarism can’t be tolerated on any level. As Managing Editor Cliff Teutsch said, “Plagiarism violates our trust with the readers, whether a story is about politics or sports or food. It will be dealt with severely.”
I also agree with Frank’s perspective. “When you have a writer, you have to believe them,” Frank said. “Rock bottom, you have to say I believe this person. You have to believe this is their own work, their own creativity, their own imagination – all the things you pay writers for.”
Given that this is The Courant’s second public brush with plagiarism in five months (a sports writer was suspended for taking material from another newspaper), it’s past time to get that proposal on the books so everyone is clear about the consequences of the breach.
Readers may not have noticed, but these are dark days in journalism circles. The entire industry is bristling over The New York Times’ run-in with plagiarism and fabrications by former reporter Jayson Blair. Last week Pulitzer Prize-winning national correspondent Rick Bragg resigned from The Times after the newspaper suspended him for not giving the proper credit to an assistant for his reporting on a story. The Salt Lake City Tribune in April fired two reporters who had sold information about the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case to the National Enquirer.
Journalists across the country are responding by holding meetings to examine their own newsroom standards. The Courant’s is scheduled for Monday.
