Journalism professor ousted as columnist for plagiarism

AP via SFGate ^ | 11/12/7 | unattributed

[SmithL]

Columbia, Mo. (AP) -- A distinguished University of Missouri-Columbia journalism professor will no longer write a weekly newspaper column after admitting to plagiarizing material from a student reporter.

John Merrill, a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, also wrote a Sunday column for the Columbia Missourian, a community newspaper affiliated with the school.

But a Nov. 4 column by Merrill about the university's women's and gender studies program used three quotes and other phrases taken directly from an Oct. 5 story in The Maneater, an independent student newspaper.

Missourian Executive Editor Tom Warhover disclosed the plagiarism in his own column Sunday. A review of Merrill's earlier work by Missourian editors found five more columns in which at least one quote had been taken from other publications without attribution, Warhover wrote.

"Missourian policy does not allow any writer to appropriate someone else's words as his own, even when those words are within quotation marks," he said.

While Warhover said that several colleagues he consulted described Merrill's transgression as "the ethical equivalent of a misdemeanor, not a felony,"

[SmithL]

hmmmmmmmmm

[nmh]

Another liberal?

[zerosix]

Professor of Journalism, hmmmmmmmmmm.

How long has this plagiarist been teaching his "craft?"

Presumably, he allowed his students to appropriate the work of others, since he himself has no problem doing it.

I suppose that we can rest assured that many of his ilk are also teaching at other academic institutions.

[SandRat]

Had a Student done such an act, he would be summarily expelled from University. The same “Courtesy” should be accorded to the Professor.

[Man50D]

He can always get a job at the New York Times.

[Greg F]

Snicker.

[Liberty Valance]

"...column by Merrill about the university's women's and gender studies program used three quotes and other phrases taken directly from an Oct. 5 story in The Maneater."

yuck.

[martin_fierro]

Source: Columbian Missourian (lest I be accused of plagiarism)

[Walkingfeather]

Well this is kinda funny, since I know college profs. who have outside contract work that they assign to their students as “ Assignments “then edit the work for themselves turning it to their clients and get paid.

[DustyMoment]

A distinguished University of Missouri-Columbia journalism professor will no longer write a weekly newspaper column after admitting to plagiarizing material from a student reporter.

Apparently, someone doesn't understand something. Ethics, morals, laws, policies, etc., don't apply to liberals. Those things only apply to conservatives. With liberals, the policy is "Do as I say, NOT as I do"!

[VOA]

Local interest story ping

[Tribune7]

ping

[Old Professer]

As I have always maintained and consider to be both true and original, A house divided, cannot stand.

[antinomian]

"Missourian policy does not allow any writer to appropriate someone else's words as his own, even when those words are within quotation marks,"

huh?

That sentence doesn't make sense. If quotation marks are used then the writer is not claiming the words to be his own.

[tracer]

What a slick way for an aging writer to get himself hired by the New York Times....

[USNBandit]

This is a pretty common problem. My father had a research partner call him one night, a decade after he had completed his doctorate. Evidently, one of the professors on my father's doctoral board had plagiarized a bunch of material out of Dad's thesis.

Nothing was done to the academic criminal.

[ozzymandus]

I had a history teacher who had his students do all the reaserch for a book he was writing this way. I waited years for his book to come out so I could sue his ass, but I guess he never got it published.

[jobim]

I was a lowly undergraduate when, at the professor's prompting, I took on a paper on the Bonus Marchers. That 12 page paper later became the blueprint for this professor's book, and I was never thanked either personally or in print. I'm still not sure what a professor's responsibilities are toward attributing his work from student papers.

The book is at:
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=27284502#

[kenavi]

No surprise, as according to the headline, he was already a “columnist for plagiarism”.