http://bit.ly/WHKLb
Politico's Michael Calderone on Dowd v. TPM.
Calderone quotes Times PR person Diane McNulty, who says, "There is no need to do anything further since there is no allegation, hint or anything else from Marshall that this was anything but an error. It was corrected. Journalists often use feeds from other staff journalists, free-lancers, stringers, a whole range of people. And from friends."
Ah. So she didn't mean it, so it's okay, then? Great. If I ever cheat on my wife, I'll try that defense.
McNulty is missing the point here. (I'm assuming Dowd didn't read TPM, click on the delicious phrase, put it in her column, change a couple of words, and call them her own (that would require a level of dementedness I can't ascribe even to her).) The point is, and continues to be, that Dowd took the words VERBATIM. It doesn't matter that much whose words they are (apparently, TPM has said it doesn't mind, as long as it is given credit).
Maureen Dowd is being paid, presumably a fairly healthy sum, to comment upon the news of the day. It is assumed that she is not cutting and pasting content from ANYONE-me, Josh Micah Marshall, Eric Clapton, Spongebob, her husband or boyfriend (or girlfriend), anyone-verbatim without giving credit. It is assumed she takes input from all these sources, except maybe Spongebob, and uses them to form thoughts and express them in her own words.
The problem is not the error, whoever it happened. The problem is the New York Times printed content under her byline that was purported to be her thoughts and was manifestly not hers-verbatim. Is the Times okay with their columnists taking content from anyone, word for word? An apology isn't enough. An "I didn't mean it" isn't enough.
What would be enough? Should she be fired? Shamed? Put on unpaid leave for a month? Just wondering...I haven't given the issue much thought.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you on the cheating piece though. If I cheated on my husband, got caught and then said, "I didn't mean it," it certainly wouldn't be enough!
I think she should be suspended.
ReplyDeleteAgain, it isn't that Marshall is upset-by all accounts, he isn't-it's that it is profoundly sloppy journalism to take a sentence, change two words, and call it yours. Her story is that her friend told her this, and so she added it to her column. If it's her byline, it's her thoughts, not her friends' or anyone else's.
Ironic that she was the one who caught Biden plagiarizing, no?
Ooooh... I didn't know she flagged Biden for plagiarizing. Oh, nice Karma kick-back.
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