"Each day in American newspapers and magazines, journalists kidnap the words of other writers without attribution or shame.
"The practice is called plagiarism, a name derived from the Latin word for kidnapper. In the academic world, it is the most serious of crimes. But in the world of journalism, a world without footnotes, the snatching of words and ideas is too often ignored, misunderstood or considered standard procedure."
That was written by Roy Peter Clark ... in 1983 -- long before Google, Bing and Yahoo.
I recommend reading the full article, titled "Plagiarism -- the Unoriginal Sin" on Poynter.org -- the best site on journalism I've found: /www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=133454.
The article sets the gold standard for the issue, so good in fact, it was republished by Poynter in 2000 and again in 2007.
Plagiarism was a serious issue in 1983 when research was done by "manually" reading books, newspapers and other printed media. Consider how much easier it is today to do the same research.
A couple clicks, a copy and a paste is all it takes.
On the Web, it's easy to steal others' ideas and words, but it's also easy to check to see if the words are stolen. There are now "plagiarism checkers" on the Internet.
That's what happened last week -- one reader allegedly committed plagiarism and another reported it.
The end result was that the letter to the editor was removed from the online Sun-Star and a clarification was written both online and in print. The editors explained why the letter was removed.
Some readers say, "So, what's the big deal?" I still get e-mails asking to help bring a columnist back to the Sun-Star, a columnist who was told she could no longer write for the paper.
The big deal is that it's dishonest -- and destroys the fragile relationship between the reader and the writer. As readers, we expect the ideas and words to be original -- not rehashed from another author.
I often find writing where I thought, "Dang, I wish I had said that" or "What a perfect way to make her point."
Well, I can reuse those exact words. All I need to do is tell the reader where they came from. All it costs is a couple quotes and the original author's name.
Plagiarism is not just using others' words -- but doing so without attribution.
Plagiarism is rampant on Sunspot -- the Sun-Star reader forums. There are some threads that are obviously collections of copy-and-paste ideas.
But not in the Sun-Star itself.
After the plagiarized letter to the editor last week, all letters to the editor are now checked on one of several plagiarism checkers. Columns submitted by columnists are also checked.
Reporters' stories must follow the policies in McClatchy's Employee Handbook. It reads like a laundry list of ways to get terminated. After the long list it then concludes with, "The appearance of impropriety should be avoided, as well as improper conduct itself.
As if that isn't enough, Executive Editor Mike Tharp reads every story before it is published. He says, "I'm widely read enough and current enough -- and most importantly, know the reporters' individual styles so well by now -- to catch any attempt by reporters to pass off someone else's work as their own."
Tharp is serious. When he taught journalism at CSU Fullerton he had a strict policy. If the student plagiarized on an assignment, it resulted in an "F" on the assignment. If there was a repeat violation, the student was kicked out of class.
The Sun-Star is committed to giving us original thoughts in its stories, columns and letters. To do otherwise would lead to readers mistrusting what they read.
I asked Tharp what he'd like a reader to do if he or she suspected plagiarism -- even with all the filters now in place. His reply is very telling: "Let James Burns, Keith Jones, Brandon Bowers or me know -- better still, all of us."
Tom Frazier writes Sun Dog and can be reached at sundog@promessage.com.
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