Does Plagiarism Bug You?

This is from a recent column by Howard Kurtz, media critic for the Washington Post. Is it, as the writer at the end of the article claims, a "witch hunt" or are editors finally becoming more careful, having been burned by the Jayson Blairs of the world?

Let me know what you think.



Ken Parish Perkins, television critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, resigned last week after being confronted with several instances of apparent plagiarism.

After a caller noted that Perkins had used a paragraph as it appeared verbatim in Entertainment Weekly, editors found several pieces in which he had lifted long phrases or sentences without attribution. Perkins was such a hard worker that "it's so hard for us to understand why this happened," Editor Jim Witt was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the Bakersfield Californian found that more than a third of the 96 stories written by Nada Behziz contained "plagiarized material, misattributed quotes and information, factual errors or people whose existence could not be verified -- including seven physicians and a UCLA professor." Behziz, who was fired last month, told the paper: "This is a witch hunt. Too bad your news organization is not this vigilant in pursuing true wrongdoers."

Citation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/20/AR2005112001258_2.html