Please pay no attention to the charges made by the Infidels. Mr. Osama Olesker is no plagarist. Trust me.
Posted on 01/04/2006 5:12:33 AM PST by WideGlide
A longtime columnist for The Baltimore Sun resigned Tuesday amid allegations of plagiarism from other newspapers, The Sun said early Wednesday.
Michael Olesker, who wrote a column that appeared twice a week in the Maryland section of The Sun for 27 years, quit two weeks before his 30th anniversary as a Baltimore columnist. His most recent column had appeared in Tuesday's Sun.
"I made mistakes," Olesker said as he cleaned out his desk in the newsroom, according to an article in The Sun's editions published Wednesday.
"I am sorry to say that in the course of doing those columns, I unintentionally screwed up a handful of paragraphs. I am embarrassed by my sloppiness," The Sun quoted the columnist as saying.
Neither Olesker nor Sun editor Timothy Franklin could be reached for comment by The Associated Press early Wednesday.
The newspaper's story quoted Franklin as saying, "Clearly, this is a practice that's unacceptable, and we acted quickly to meet with Mike and try to resolve it. It's been excruciatingly painful."
Olesker and Sun political editor David Nitkin are central figures in a First Amendment lawsuit the newspaper has filed against Governor Ehrlich.
In November 2004, Ehrlich issued an order prohibiting state executive branch employees from speaking with Olesker and Nitkin. The ban was imposed after Nitkin disclosed a state proposal to sell preserved forestland in St. Mary's County to a politically connected construction company owner.
Press secretary Greg Massoni said in the e-mail detailing the ban that Nitkin and Olesker "are failing to objectively report on any issue dealing with the Ehrlich-Steele administration."
The governor's staff had complained about a November 2004 column in which Olesker described a meeting that he did not attend. Olesker acknowledged that he did not attend the meeting and apologized.
The governor's office also accused Olesker of concocting a conversation with Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele May 2004. But a few days after leveling the accusation, Ehrlich's office retracted it and acknowledged that Steele had spoken to the columnist.
The most recent allegations against Olesker came Tuesday in an e-mail from Gadi Dechter, a media reporter at the Baltimore City Paper, an alternative weekly, to Sun City Editor Howard Libit.
Dechter said he and a research assistant had reviewed Olesker's columns during the past two years and found instances in which the columnist had apparently used the work of journalists at The New York Times and The Washington Post without attribution. Dechter found Olesker's columns included work of Sun colleagues, as well.
Dechter's research was prompted by a correction in The Sun on December 24 in which the paper said that a paragraph from a December 12 column by Olesker about former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland was almost identical to several lines in a 2003 profile of the senator by Peter Carlson of The Post.
The Sun then began a review of Olesker's work, which was under way when he resigned.
Please pay no attention to the charges made by the Infidels. Mr. Osama Olesker is no plagarist. Trust me.
Yes, good riddance (not that I read that rag).
I heard he was taking a job as speech writer for Joe ("Joey the Punk") Biden. The Senator thought he had certain skills that would be useful.
Whatever state you live in, think of the worst liberal local member of your media. The one that for years has badmouthed republicans while ignoring the misdeeds of democrats. The one that ridicules everyting about conservatives with snide remarks. This was ours...
Ding dong the witch is dead, the witch is dead, the witch is dead!!!!
WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!
Michael OlesssssssssssssssssssskeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrOlesker was a smarmy, condescending J.O. His poor column was surpassed in vapidity by his regular appearance as a commentator on WJZ13.
I once heard one pretentious reporter (I think it was Mike Wallace) describe his job as "turning the lights on and watching the cockroaches scramble." Isn't it interesting that when the light is turned on the journalists, so many of them are "scrambling."
This is really big news for local politics.
I do not kick people when they are down, but I'd have to make an exception for this sad excuse for a man.
And if you are going to make an exception to your rule, make it a good exception. Kick him really hard. In a bad place . . .
'Smarmy" is the correct description of this scumbag.
What a great day. Truly pathetic leftist. A time to celebrate!
He was being coached by Dan Rather.
Sloppiness?
He's only sorry he was caught and is now the latest member of the Janet Cook (Pulitzer Prize winning, Washington Post fabricator) Club of exposed, hack journalists.
Maybe Dan Rodricks can find him a job.
I haven't paid any attention to the Sun in years. Is Rodricks gone also?
No, Rodricks is still there. He's on a crusade lately to find jobs for ex-cons and drug addicts. Maybe one will apply for Olesker's old job.
Apparently he didn't screw them up enough.
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