How would the NYT react if Joe Biden gave an excuse this lame?

[babylonsister]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200905170020


How would the NYT react if Joe Biden gave an excuse this lame?

May 17, 2009 8:33 pm ET by Jamison Foser

Here's Maureen Dowd's explanation for how her column came to contain a 42 word passage -- commas and all -- lifted without attribution from Josh Marshall:

I didn't read his blog last week, and didn't have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now.

i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column.

but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me.

Here's what Marshall wrote:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

And here's what appeared in the New York Times under Maureen Dowd's byline:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

So, does it seem even remotely plausible that Maureen Dowd had a conversation with a friend in which the friend repeated 42 words written by Josh Marshall, and that Dowd later typed those 42 words perfectly, with the commas in the same place, from memory? Of course it doesn't. (And by the way: Even if you take Dowd's explanation at face value -- which you probably shouldn't -- she still has some explaining to do. Because based on Dowd's story, she didn't "weave" her friend's "idea" into her column; she passed her friend's thoughts off as her own, lifting them word-for-word.)

So how do you think Maureen Dowd would react if, say, Joe Biden ripped off a few dozen of someone else's words, then offered up an excuse this lame? Or if Al Gore did?

[meegbear]

1. Interesting choice of person for your "How would ..." example ...

From TPM:

UPDATE: Turns out Dowd was heavily involved in exposing Joe Biden's plagiarism when he ran for President 20 years ago (h/t clonecone): The detail can be found in this article from Slate back in 2008: The Write Stuff? Oh, the irony!

<snip>

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/thejoshuablog/2009/05/ny-times-maureen-dowd-plagiari.php

[babylonsister]

7. Thanks for that. Maybe that's why MM used Biden as an example. nt

[Jennicut]

12. The thing is Joe had cited Kinnock in earlier speeches, he forgot one time.

Dowd has no excuse.

[elleng]

2. Someones should imitate her snarky tone

in doing such!

[Stephanie]

3. Obviously the conversation they had was via email

The friend offered up the line, he neglected to note where he got it, she used it. As soon as she found out it was Marshall's she apologized. I just don't get this "controversy" - it's ridiculous.

[babylonsister]

5. I think the controversy

is a result of how casually Dowd blamed her friend instead of taking personal responsibility.

She's so good at criticizing others, but folds like a cheap tent when she's involved.

[ThomWV]

6. Your's is the most sensible response to this question I have see yet.

[sui generis]

8. ditto - is this the Democratic Party or the Donner Party? /nt

[Skinner]

13. I agree that is is probably from an email, which would explain the almost word-for-word copy.

But I disagree that this controversy is ridiculous. The fact is that a columnist for the New York Times wrote a column that included text almost verbatim from someone else. Even if she didn't intend to directly rip it off from Josh Marshall, she ripped it off from her "friend" who ripped it off from Josh Marshall. I don't think it is too much to ask for a columnist from the New York Times to hit "reply" on an email and say "Good point! Do you mind if I copy your email word-for-word and put it in my column?"

[Stephanie]

15. Writers borrow from friends all the time - believe me, I know.

You don't know what her relationship was with the friend. Maybe he frequently contributed to her column. Maybe their relationship was such that there was no need to ask permisssion. My bf is a journalist and I see my words in his work, my ideas in his column, on a regular basis. Because I WANT him to use them, because I offer them up because I think my ideas are swell. And if I happened to one day send him some info, from DU perhaps, which I do almost daily, without noting where I copied a line from, and he used it and the shit hit the fan, well then I would feel very bad. I really would.

[Skinner]

16. Whether or not people should be able to freely borrow from friends is not really my point.

Maybe this is a friend for whom Maureen Dowd felt that permission is implied.

But the point of asking permission from a friend is not simply to ask permission. (Although asking permission is obviously a good thing to do whenever you are taking someone's work and passing it off as your own.) Asking the friend for permission is also a good idea because it gives the friend to opportunity to say, "Uh, actually, I just copied that from Josh Marshall."

With a minimum expenditure of effort she could have easily avoided this controversy. I don't see why I should be holding a columnist for the New York Times to a lower standard than I hold the members of Democratic Underground.

[Stephanie]

18. I understand your point and why you think it would be good practice

But I think the real world is a little different than your 20/20 hindsight.

[lunatica]

4. Why she would use her rapier wit and make sushi out of Biden

And if she didn't plagiarize that quote it's very strange that both writers would actually create such a tortured sentence in the first place. Oh and it's called plagiarism where I work which is UC Berkeley.

[able1]

9. Sen. Cheater

She'd call him Senator Cheater and mock him mercilessly.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. proves that bloggers are writing some good stuff, though, eh?

[Old and In the Way]

11. Obviously. a blogger ethics panel should be convened to review this.

Dowd is jut another lazy psuedo-journalist who assumes that any ideas/content read on the internet are poachable for use in the traditional media, without attribution.

[Spazito]

14. Yep, media matters nails it, imo...

There is a vast difference between weaving an idea and quoting word for word someone else's work, whether it was from a friend (which I am having trouble believing) or from Josh Marshall's blog.

All she would have had to do was:

As a friend recently said, "More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

It would have been the wrong attribution but it would have shown she was not taking someone else's work and putting it forth as her own. She didn't even do that which makes her 'explanation' less than credible, imo.

[Egalitariat]

17. Did Biden make an excuse when he got caught plagiarizing? I thought he just dropped out of the race

nm