Posted on 06/09/2003 6:22:09 AM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A small-town newspaper plans to adopt and publish a code of ethics after a sports writer was fired for plagiarizing sports columns and parts of a movie review. Michael Kinney, 29, was fired by The Sedalia Democrat after an investigation prompted by a reader who called the paper last month to report similarities between a movie review by Kinney and one written by nationally syndicated columnist Roger Ebert.
"We have let our readers down by publishing without attribution material taken from other writers under Michael Kinney's byline," editor Oliver Wiest wrote. "I apologize to our readers for that." Wiest, in a special column published Sunday, said he fired Kinney June 5. The Democrat is a daily newspaper with a circulation of about 11,800 in the central Missouri town 100 miles east of Kansas City. Besides the code of ethics, the newspaper will publish a column "explaining the ethical standards by which we expect our readers to hold us accountable."
Wiest said he searched the Internet and "found several similar instances of plagiarism from online sources in Mr. Kinney's movie reviews dating back to late last year." Wiest said he also asked Kinney "what I would find when I examined his sports columns. He replied nothing. 'That's all mine.' Sadly, it was not." Wiest said he found "more extensive plagiarism" in two of Kinney's sports columns.
Most of the material lifted by Kinney consisted of descriptive phrases, sentences and "occasionally a paragraph," Wiest wrote. Nothing in Kinney's sports coverage was found to be questionable, he said. Wiest said Kinney had told him that "he had lifted character descriptions in Roger Ebert's nationally syndicated column from a Web site when he was running up against his copy deadline. He said he did it to save time and acknowledged that as 'a stupid mistake.' He led me to believe that it was an isolated incident."
Wiest said Kinney told him he had "not realized the extent to which he had used others' words and presented it as his own work." Kinney was hired as a sports writer in December 2001 and began writing movie reviews for the daily newspaper last year. Kinney returned a call from The Associated Press on Sunday but cut the interview short when visitors arrived at his Sedalia apartment. He said he had worked previously at a newspaper in Washington state, and he described his experience in Sedalia as "a little tough."
Funny how reporters are never caught plagiarising material about how awful Republicans and conservatives in general are. That is all original material. Perhaps this is a wakeup call for the Journalistic profession to return to its roots before all credibility is lost.
Cheating is also rampant in schools. In my sons Chemistry class, a kid stole the test and the answers a couple days ahead of time, and shared with whomever wanted them. Not everyone cheated, but many did. I told my son that we'll see if they'll be able to cheat on the regents exam this month......
LOL. The New York Times is going to be strictly reviewing EVERYTHING written by EVERYONE that is published for a long time. Seriously, this is a nationwide problem. If a reputable publication (?) would put a team on this, they would be shocked at what they find not only in newspapers but in high schools across the country. English teachers in particular are having major problems with students plagiarising (sic?).
Yes it is. I know of a case THIS PAST YEAR where two girls AND two guys (two teams) helped each other cheat on tests. Other students told me the girls have been doing it for YEARS. It is a problem which has developed over a long period of time with Democrats as primary examples and it will take a long time to solve the problem with hopefully honest Republicans as examples, if it can be solved at all.
Depends on what the definition of "it is" is. Did you plagiarize that statment?
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