Chapter 9: Stolen Words, Invented Facts … or Worse
Overview
Kara Wedekind, “The unethical timeline,” American Journalism Review, August 2005.
A review of a series of plagiarism and fabrication cases and other transgressions.
http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=3934
Jack Shafer, “The Romenesko effect: How a one-man Web site is improving journalism,” Slate.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2116903/fr/rss/
Bob Steele, “Cutting corners,” poynteronline, Aug. 29, 2003. Steele explores the question of why
a veteran journalist would cut ethical corners and jeopardize his career.
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=46229
Michael White, “Survey: Public thinks journalists often guilty of ethical lapses,” The Associated
Press, Oct. 16, 1998. (News databases)
Columbia Journalism Review, “After the falls,” May/June 2007. Students in the
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism provide updates on seven highprofile cases. (Academic databases)
Plagiarism
Norman P. Lewis, Paradigm Disguise: Systemic Influences on Newspaper Plagiarism, 2007.
http://www.lib.umd.edu/drum/bitstream/1903/6803/1/umi-umd-4289.pdf
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
poynteronline in July 2000: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=133454
Leonard Pitts Jr., “Chris Cecil, plagiarism gets you fired,” The Miami Herald, June 3, 2005.
https://journalismclass.wikispaces.com/file/view/pitts.pdf
Edward Wasserman, “What is ‘original’ journalism anyway?”, The Miami Herald, May 30, 2005.
http://journalism.wlu.edu/Knight/2005/05-30-05.html
Trudy Lieberman, “Plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize … only be sure to always call it research,”
Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1995. (Academic databases)
Edward Wasserman, “Plagiarism and precedence,” Media Ethics Magazine, Fall 2006,
Vol. 18, No. 1. The Washington and Lee professor offers a detailed definition of
“journalistic plagiarism.”
http://media.www.mediaethicsmagazine.com/media/storage/paper655/news/2006/12/31/
AnalysesCommentary/Fall-2006.Vol.18.No.1plagiarism.And.Precedence-2655669.shtml
Siva Vaidhyanathan, “Copyright jungle,” Columbia Journalism Review,
September/October 2006. A primer on copyright law. (Academic databases)
Craig Silverman, “The counter-plagiarism handbook,” cjr.org, Feb. 26, 2010. For writers,
tips for avoiding plagiarism while researching. For editors, tips for detecting plagiarism.
http://www.cjr.org/regret_the_error/the_counterplagiarism_handbook.php?page=all
Craig Silverman, “Why newsrooms don’t use plagiarism detection services,” Mediashift,
March 23, 2010. http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/03/why-newsrooms-dont-useplagiarism-detection-services082.html
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.”
Chip Scanlan, “The first peril: fabrication,” poynteronline, Aug. 23, 2002. The Poynter
Institute scholar revisits Hersey’s legend on the license.
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=9506
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.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/jamesfrey/0104061jamesfrey1.html
Six 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), 1625.
Stephen Glass:
Buzz Bissinger, “Shattered Glass,” Vanity Fair, September 1998. About the Stephen Glass case.
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1998/09/bissinger199809
Lori Robertson, “Shattered Glass at The New Republic,” American Journalism Review, June
1998. http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=1838
Howard Kurtz, “Stephen Glass waits for prime time to say ‘I lied’ ”, The Washington Post, May 7,
2003. (News databases)
Ann Reilly Dowd, “The Great Pretender: How a writer fooled his readers,” Columbia
Journalism Review, July/August 1998. (Academic databases)
Patricia Smith:
Sinéad O’Brien, “Secrets and lies,” American Journalism Review, September 1998.
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=648
Patricia Smith, “A note of apology,” The Boston Globe, June 16, 1998. (News databases)
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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/11PAPE.html
Jacques Steinberg, “Times reporter resigns after questions on article,” The New York Times, May
2, 2003.About the Jayson Blair case. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/02/us/times-reporterresigns-after-questions-on-article.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
Howard Kurtz, “Reporter resigns over copied story,” The Washington Post, May 2, 2003.
(LexisNexis Academic)
Case study: “Jayson Blair: A case study of what went wrong at The New York Times,”
PBS Online Newshour, posted Dec. 10, 2004. Links to video clip.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/media_ethics/casestudy_blair.php
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.” http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3020
Jack Kelley:
Blake Morrison, “Ex-USA Today reporter faked major stories,” USA Today, March 21, 2004. USA
Today’s investigation of Jack Kelley. http://www.usatoday.com/news/2004-03-18-2004-0318_kelleymain_x.htm
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.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/media_ethics/pdfs/usatoday-report.pdf.
Case study: “Credibility in question: Jack Kelley and USA Today,” PBS Online
Newshour, posted Dec. 10, 2004.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/media_ethics/casestudy_usatoday.php
Two 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. http://www.asne.org/kiosk/editor/98.sept/sanford1.htm
Nicholas Bender, “Damage report: After the Chiquita story,” Columbia Journalism Review,
May/June 2001. (Academic databases)
Setting and Enforcing Standards
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. http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3668
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. http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=3933
Los Angeles Times Ethics Guidelines, July 13, 2005. Places responsibility on staff members to
report ethical violations. http://www.asne.org/ideas/codes/losangelestimes.htm
Joyce Gemperlein, “Conclusions from the Editors’ Forum on Newsroom Standards,”
American Society of Newspaper Editors, June 26, 2003. Among the conclusions: Create
an environment of “speaking out,” one that encourages ethical lapses to be brought to the
attention of top editors. http://204.8.120.192/index.cfm?ID=4750
Poynter Institute, “Journalism without scandal,” a series of essays about journalism and
its culture. http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=55742
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.]
Related Case Study
Clark Hoyt, “Journalistic shoplifting,” Public Editor’s column in The New York Times,
March 7, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/opinion/07pubed.html