Discussion for article #225688
Plagiarizing Wikipedia is really stupid.
7 Likes
If the NYT job comes to an end, she can always run as a Tea Party Senator from Kentucky.
She re-wrote one paragraph from Wikipedia for an article. That isn’t a big deal. Calling the article “plagiarized” would be a stretch.
1 Like
Or just self-sabotaging: “I am really, really trying to get caught.”
2 Likes
It is baldfaced theft of someone else’s work product, and not acceptable for a professional writer. Period.
8 Likes
Please. It’s a very big deal. You’re supposed to do original research, and properly credit the research of others, not copy stuff out of Wikipedia like a seventh-grader. The details you include and the way you organize them are supposed to be your work, not the work of unpaid volunteers. Any self-respecting editor would fire her for that.
4 Likes
Right. She could have very easily have started the paragraph with 'According to Wikipedia, '. To do otherwise makes it sound like she read up on the guy and synthesized what she read into what she wrote.
4 Likes
Wikipedia? Really?
2 Likes
My thoughts, exactly.
1 Like
Jesus tits!! A simple “according to his biography at Wikipedia” would suffice. Admittedly, it is probably looked down upon in journalistic circles to rely on Wikipedia as a source, but acknowledging it as a source seems to be worlds better than getting caught for plagiarizing Wikipedia.
1 Like
It’s looking more and more like credentials are a racket and enforcement of professional codes of ethics, especially in situations like these with no pain caused to the “victims,” is more about arbitrary power dynamics.
So – especially taking into account Vogel’s reputation among the scene she covers – what are the perks of her job and why does she get them, exactly?
So in your view, it’s not a major breach to steal someone else’s work and attach your own byline to it.
You learn something every day about how other people set their ethical standards.
2 Likes
Even forgetting the author of the original content, the NY Times is certainly an aggrieved party in this matter. They are paying for a writer of original content, and indeed stake their reputation on providing such to their readers. So, if ethics don’t matter, they’ll launch this copy/paster for damaging the brand.
2 Likes
Gee wiz! When are these supposed professionals (politicians and reporters) going to pay the Wikipedia volunteers?
That is not the central question. The central question is whether, by attaching her own byline to someone else’s work, she lied and harmed her relationships with her audience and her employer.
Again, it’s always interesting to see how other people construct their ethical frameworks.
1 Like
The fact that so many consider this to be “no big deal” is why it continues. Really, get an education or educate yourself about how to do research and report on it or get out of the business. You can get kicked out of college for one instance of plagiarism. Why is business giving these plagiarists more than one shot at reporting without plagiarizing someone else’s work? Off with their heads!
I didn’t say ethics don’t matter, but that their enforcement was left to arbitrary power dynamics. The main difference now is that the original author or someone familiar with the work would have had to have noticed the difference previously, where as now text is so much more easily cross-indexed that people like @crushingbort or @blippoblappo can uncover major plagiarism on the part of reporters and editors at big outfits.
Which makes me think, again, that credentials are a racket. People without the NYT imprimatur do some excellent investigative and feature work. People at NYT sometimes do work at that level, and sometimes fall far short, but always get to wrap themselves up in the cozy professional/reputational/occupational security of working for that paper.
The paper is having it both ways. While that sort of dichotomy is common in the powerful, you have to be able to maintain the power imbalance in order to make it worthwhile for everyone. Credentialing, sourcing, etc. are ways the press has generated to regulate access to keep admission to the “club” respectable, but if the result is work that is almost as predictably slipshod as any professional-grade blog, the whole process seems suspect to me.
More cut and paste “journalism” to get a story out fast I’d be curious if the Wiki article has any attribution to it either. They can and do flag those instances, but I’ve see few outright removed.
The problem with Wiki sourcing is just that. The possibility of public input without moderation from scholars or the presence of citations. This is why I use Wiki with a large grain of salt, if at all, to do anything deeper than say check a birth date on someone.
Its partly laziness really, and the fact that nobody seems to care much. After all, they can’t put anything on the Net that isn’t true, Right?
It’s become motto and mantra for an entire generation.
What we ought to be asking ourselves as Teachers to this generation is Where we went so wrong letting a flawed belief like this slide into what passes (not by much) for “journalism” these days.