[Baltimore Sun Columnist ]Olesker Out (detailed account of his alleged plagiarism)

WBAL ^ | January 04, 2006 | WBAL

[Former Military Chick]

Thank goodness they are doing a house cleaning. Have to tell you, it gives one pause to think of those in the news not putting out their own stuff.

Obviously those of the past have not taught anyone a lesson here.

[Red Badger]

Why, he could be a Presidential candidate!..........

[AppyPappy]

Old school journalists used plagarism to write articles. They used the work of others as "research". It was hard to get caught before Nexus and the internet.

New school journalists use DNC/DU/MoveOn faxes and outright fabrications to write articles. They are no longer handcuffed to the truth. After all, who is going to correct them?

[conservative in nyc]

Ping!

Olekser was the Sun columnist who wrote sloppy, biased crap about NCPAC and the MD4Bush affair.

City Paper article link.

[big'ol_freeper]

So sorry...NOT!! Don't let the door hit ya in the arse.

[Vision]

This is a good day in Baltimore

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

Thanks for the ping!

[TheForceOfOne]

The bigger cockroach (The Sun) bites off the head of the smaller cockroach (Olesker). Cannibalism taking place inside the walls of the Baltimore Sun.

Just wait until the MD4BUSH story is fully exposed, it may look like "Lord Of The Flies" over there before its all over with.

[Heatseeker]

...or at least work for one. I bet Joe Biden could use a speechwriter. ;)

[Red Badger]

All this guy would have had to do was write, "So-and-so said....." and he'd have been okay. Must've been really lazy..........

[Heatseeker]

Years ago I remember visiting a very talented (and wickedly funny) local cartoonist and writer, Rick Kollinger, and complaining about the leftist bias of journalists. Rick responded that in his experience, many journalists weren't biased towards any particular political philosophy, unless you counted laziness and sloppiness as political philosophies.

[Former Military Chick]

PING

Perhaps we are finally cleaning house.

[Gondring]

...or at least work for one. I bet Joe Biden could use a speechwriter. ;)

My first thought, before even reading much of the article! You beat me to it!

[calex59]

that I made errors of sloppiness and inadvertence that were human mistakes and certainly not in any way willful

So he copied others works but didn't do it willfully, that's nice to know. These people just can't tell the truth can they?

[Gondring]

Actually, The Sun isn't leveling the allegation of plagiarism. They are spinning it as a less-serious offense:

The Sun’s correction described Olesker’s mistake as a failure of attribution, not plagiarism, explaining that Olesker had recorded Carlson’s description in a notebook, in preparation for an April 2004 interview with Cleland. When he returned to the notebook 20 months later, according to the correction, Olesker mistook his close paraphrase of the Post paragraph as his own interview notes.
[...]
“It really was a mistake,” Libit says. “A panel of editors got together and talked about it with Mike [Olesker], and he retrieved the notebook and we looked at it, and it truly was a mistake and inadvertent.”
[...]
After satisfying themselves that Olesker’s near-copy of Carlson’s language was accidental, the committee of editors drafted the correction, which ran on Saturday, Dec. 24. The correction does not use the word “plagiarism” to describe Olesker’s mistake, Libit says, because “this wasn’t a case where [Olesker] was trying to take a shortcut or was intentionally copying from another source. This was a case where 20 months later his notes were unclear.” When asked whether the newspaper is taking disciplinary action, Libit says, “I can’t talk about that,” but adds that Olesker’s column will continue to run as usual.

The problem comes when other examples were so readily found. This shows that The Sun has not fully explained the actions of its former columnist (although he might be described as "habitually sloppy"...both with unattributed quotes and facts!).

[Gondring]

To clarify, I'm not sure any allegations of "plagiarism" have been made.

[processing please hold]

Just wait until the MD4BUSH story is fully exposed,

Will it ever be, or will it always be on the peripheral?

[processing please hold]

Perhaps we are finally cleaning house.

I hope you're right.

[StAnDeliver]