Discussion for article #225664
You guys really are the kings of piling on. A guy got caught plagiarizing many of his articles. OK. He got fired. Sounds like the case is closed. But how many times are you guys going to write about it with such glee and tabloid-esque flair? He’s human. He screwed up. Do you really think this kind of drum-beating is how you want to represent yourselves? The way you’re going after this guy makes you sound wildly petulant.
@blippoblappo and @crushingbort gave great classy responses.
As far as the pile on, sorry, I’m going to be part of the heap. The fact that Benny was calling out people plagiarizing his work when he was engaged in the same type of activity is the height of hypocricy.
I guess the saying “it takes one to know one” applies.
Good riddance.
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Is Charles C. Johnson the Twitter Wonder their next target?
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This is an interview with the guys who uncovered the plagiarism. It’s news. How does it amount to “piling on?”
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Also, even if it were “piling on,” which it isn’t, it would be justified (though, at this point, superfluous). Benny Johnson is a repellent, objectionable human being. Why do you feel the need to defend him?
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A couple of instances of plagiarism is a screw up. 40 + instances is a pattern. This wasn’t a mistake. It was how Johnson did business at BuzzFeed.
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It’s like bringing down a substitute teacher in a corrupt school district. Whoopdee doo.
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I wouldn’t worry too much about Johnson being able to find work. Being a lying conservative hack pays pretty well.
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Thank you, sincerely, for these interviews. It’s all too easy for serious news outlets to avoid acknowledging the contributions of people like crushingbort & blippoblappo just because they’re perceived as part of the Weird Twitter fringe. Their insightful commentary here shows why that’s a mistake.
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As for those who are thinking Johnson isn’t going to land on his feet…he came from the Breitbart/Drudge universe. BuzzFeed is as close to mainstream as he’s ever been. You think for a second after all of this he hasn’t been inundated with offers to run lobbying firm PR or Tea Party works?
He’s a DudeBro. He’ll be just fine.
Perhaps it may behoove some of those worrying about his employability to have a bit more compassion and concern for the legions of unknown writers and bloggers out there who toil and fight in the dark to have their work recognized, that he’s ripped off over the years…yeah, I think I’ll plant my flag of support in that soil instead of a bigoted and racist serial plagiarist, thanks.
I’m not defending the guy at all. I guess I just don’t consider Buzzfeed to be a “news source,” so when someone there got caught plagiarizing it doesn’t really rise to the level of news, much less a scandal complete with in depth interviews with the people who broke the case. To me, Buzzfeed is just TMZ with more gifs. There have been at least 3 articles on this story in the past two days, and to attribute that much coverage to something like this feels petty to me. The guy’s clearly a douche, but giving it more than one article just makes it smell like it’s personal.
But this is way more impactful on people’s lives than what the status of the Social Security trust fund is, about which a new trustee report was issued today. I know when I turn 67 in 2031, two years before the trust fund might be exhausted, whether or not some nobody “plagiarized” other nobody’s insipid Twitter turds is going to be a very serious matter.
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Exactly.