New Media vs Dead Tree: Maureen Dowd and the plagiarism row

Telegraph Blogs (U.K.) ^ | May 18, 2009 | Toby Harnden

[Schnucki]

In many ways, Maureen Dowd and Joshua Micah Marshall personify new and old media. One is former political reporter and venerable columnist who dispenses bon mots from the New York Times editorial page once a week. The other is a blogging wunderkind who has blazed a trail with the liberal TalkingPointsMemo site.

So when thejoshuablog (who's not Marshall) blogged over the weekend that Dowd had lifted, almost word for word, a slab of text from a blog by Marshall last week it was inevitable it would become a big deal.

Unfortunately for Dowd, the furore shows little sign of abating - it's now running on CNN- partly because her explanation seems implausible and begs more questions that it answers.

This is what Dowd originally wrote in this column (it's since been changed online):

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

And this is what Marshall wrote here:

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

So, the only difference is that Dowd used "the Bush crowd was" instead of Marshall's "we were".

Dowd's explanation? That she never read Marshall's blog but had instead used a paragraph emailled (presumably) to her by "a friend".

Huh? As Michael Calderone notes, it's odd to say the least for a columnist to take anything - even from "a friend" - and just copy and paste it without attribution into their piece.

[Schnucki]

his episode gives the lie to the notion that it is bloggers who are the parasites living off the old media. In this instance, it was the other way round.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

OK.....everybody pony up ten bucks and let’s get this FReepathon over....

Thanks.

[exist]

I dunno why but I get a very slutty vibe off Maureen Dowd.

[dayglored]

RULES!

[Tzimisce]

I predict Dowd will land a better position because of this.

[Diogenesis]

New York Times’ - Plagiarism Coverup [Week 2]