Wikipedia Plagiarism Ends Journalist's Career

An anonymous reader writes "Tim Ryan, a 21 year veteran entertainment columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, was fired yesterday after an investigation revealed multiple instances of his incorporating unattributed paragraphs from other sources. This case is unique in that it was first revealed by Wikipedia after an attentive Wikipedia editor noted similarities between a Wikipedia article and one of Ryan's columns. However he wasn't fired until after other news outlets started to run the story. Sadly, though the Star-Bulletin has admitted to the plagiarism, they failed to publicly acknowledge that Wikipedia was responsible for bringing this situation to light."

Comments

How much more that we don't know about?

[CyricZ]

This really makes one wonder how much additional plagiarism is present in the articles and reports presented by the mass media on a daily basis.

Re:How much more that we don't know about?

[Tony Hoyle]

Ever seen the plagarism of the year awards? http://5thnovember.blogspot.com/2005/12/and-winner -is.html

The winner was the Daily Mail which made a two page spread of someones blog and passed it off as their own work.

Re:How much more that we don't know about?

[Anonymous Coward]

This really makes one wonder how much additional plagiarism is present in the articles and reports presented by the mass media on a daily basis.

As the media spokesperson for the company I work for, we have stopped permitting any written media stories without requiring final draft review authority (meaning the media entity may not run the story with our quotes unless we have reviewed the final draft and approve it for release). We also tape all interviews and review quotes for accuracy with the recorded conversation. Television and radio pieces are less critical because they use source material for quotes.

We found that the frequency of errors and outright fabrication by print reporters was so high that we had to put in a policy to prevent recurrances. Things like comments attacking competitors which were never made (other than in the reporter's head - who defended it by claiming the quote was a "composite that reflected the mood of the interview") to articles that had dozens of inaccuracies - some material and some not - all drove us to lay down the rules.

A couple of suggestions I'd make for anyone that ever deals with the media:
1. Never, ever, go "off the record." They'll still use it and apologize later.
2. If you're not the official spokesperson, simply say nothing other than "Let me call my boss" and pass it along. They will burn you with quotes to advance their career.
3. Record every interview! Tell them you are recording it and you will compare the quotes with the recording. Tell them the company attorneys make you do that. This might make them be a little less loose with their writing.
4. If they're not recording but rather writing on a note pad, ask them to read back your quotes to you. Pros don't mind. If they do mind, you don't have a pro and need to take warning.

Bad reporting can hurt you or your company. I've seen good people fired for making the mistake of believing they were off the record. While there are some professionals in this field, the culture has gotten very competitive and ruthless as most of the papers have suffered major financial declines in the past decade. You either come up with hot stories or lose your job. So what if that means taking things out of context, making up quotes, or putting stuff on the record that was confidential.

Agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

This really makes one wonder how much additional plagiarism is present in the articles and reports presented by the mass media on a daily basis.

Is it really that hard...

[dbolger]

...to use babelfish to translate the wikipedia article from English to Chinese, back again, and fix the grammer? The guy deserves to be fired. Sure, for plagarism, but more importantly for being stupid enough to get caught, imho.

Re:Is it really that hard...

[3dWarlord]

It truly is that difficulty uses babelfish to translate the wikipedia article again from English to Chinese, behind, with repairs grammer? The person deserves is dismissed. Definitely, is plagarism, but heavier important place for is enough stupidly caught, imho.

should have added the {{plagiarism}} tag

[xIcemanx]

This article is [[plagiarism]]. You can [[help]] Wikipedia by [[reporting it]].

Sooo What You're Saying Is...

[jeffmeden]

"Sadly, though the Star-Bulletin has admitted to the plagiarism, they failed to publicly acknowledge that Wikipedia was responsible for bringing this situation to light."

That the story of a journalist plagiarizing wikipedia, that was revealed on wikipedia, was plagiarized by the Star-Bulletin, the paper that employed the plagiarizing writer?

Irony meter broken!!! Alert Alert!!!

Paligarsm ??

[Delifisek]

You mean select with mouse
then press ctrl + c
then press ctrl + v

But, but, isnt that feature of Windows ?

Re:Indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

This really makes one wonder how much additional plagiarism is present in the articles and reports presented by the mass media on a daily basis.

I think there's a lot. For example, Tim Ryan, a 21 year veteran entertainment columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, was fired yesterday after an investigation revealed multiple instances of his incorporating unattributed paragraphs from other sources. This case is unique in that it was first revealed by Wikipedia after an attentive Wikipedia editor noted similarities between a Wikipedia article and one of Ryan's columns. However he wasn't fired until after other news outlets started to run the story. Sadly, though the Star-Bulletin has admitted to the plagiarism, they failed to publicly acknowledge that Wikipedia was responsible for bringing this situation to light.

Referrences missing? No, not really.

[Tinfoil]

Sadly, though the Star-Bulletin has admitted to the plagiarism, they failed to publicly acknowledge that Wikipedia was responsible for bringing this situation to light."

From one of the stories linked in TFA (pops):

CORRECTION Saturday, December 24, 2005

A portion of a review of the television show "Secrets of the Black Box: Aloha Flight 243" was taken verbatim from the Web site reference.com. The material was originally published in the online encyclopedia wikipedia.com. The article, on Page D6 Thursday, failed to attribute the information to either source.

Please see the applicable Corrections Page for more information.

Re:How ironic

[timeOday]

It's not reuse that's bad, it's reuse without attribution. Even the loosey-goosey BSD license requires attribution!

...and it won't be the last time

[embrown]

It wouldn't surprise me if more instances of plagiarism surfaced for two reasons 1. technology allows for better watchdogs and 2. at the most basic level, plagiarism isn't dealt with harshly enough.

I graduated with a journalism degree a few years ago and my experience truly left me disturbed regarding the issue of plagiarism. The cardinal rule presented in every single class was that plagiarism would not only get you a failing grade, but expulsion from the program and university. Students who catch another plagiarizing are, by the university's honor code, required to turn them in. Unfortunately, few professors followed up with any sort of retribution when a student was caught.

In one instance, a web project by a classmate was blatantly plagiarized. There were several style, spelling and grammatical errors which would have caught the attention of any veteran journalist/editor, let alone a student. Sure enough, when text in the project was Googled, two instances came up: the project and the source it was copied from (errors included). When it was brought to the attention of the professor, it was immediately dismissed and no action was taken.

And that's not the only case... another professor (ironically, the one who taught Journalism Ethics) shared how in previous semesters she caught roughly a quarter of the class plagiarizing their term papers.

If plagiarism isn't taken care of at the most basic level, why should we expect it to cease? What would make any aspiring journalist who got away with plagiarizing an article feel the need to adhere to ethical reporting?

I thought "Love-Wikipedia" day was Tuesday

[pitc]

So today slashdot loves wikipedia? I'll be looking forward to the "Wikipedia Kills Baby Seals" article tomorrow.

Re:Well, maybe "sad" wasn't my first choice of wor

[chazzf]

Well, speaking as an administrator, a long-time contributor, and a historian, Wikipedia doesn't plagiarize all that often, because anything identified as a copyright violation gets deleted. If you were familiar with Wikipedia at all you would know that our rules on images are strict enough to cause plenty of grumbling and bitterness. Thanks for spouting off without knowing the facts though.