Exposing Plagiarism/Fabrication

I interned at a place that did that. At the time I remember thinking, "Jesus, don't you trust anybody?" but in hindsight, it was a great thing to do... I'll bet we could count on both hands how many papers still do that.

 

If you're working as an SID, don't burn a news organization on here. If you work in a PR capacity, and the media uses your stories verbatim, don't complain., because if you do, you shouldn't be in PR.

 

I once worked at a shop where a columnist was caught by a reader plagiarizing the NY Times. Management swept it under the table. They told him to go away for a couple of months, then he was back writing his crap. The public was never informed and everyone at the place - being fearful of their jobs in a non-unionzed newsroom - never talked about it openly either.
Guy tried to blame the deskers saying he sent a second version later in the night that we didn't change. Ah, nope.
Guy is now a columnist at the country's biggest newspaper.

 

What is so sad about this story is how easy it is to believe...

 

A newspaper that runs an SID release verbatim really isn't doing so because it's beautifully written. It's doing so because it's lazy.

 

Or understaffed and overtaxed. I don't think that type of thing is much of a problem if it's clearly marked, though I hate marking those "From staff and wire services." The best thing to do for the Web is to post a news release on a blog in a block quote with a sentence introducing it. Most places don't have the staffs to follow up on everything, and it's better to have the information via public relations than nothing.

Now, if you're willing to devote more than a paragraph or two in print to a news release, that probably indicates you should actually be reporting out the story.