Posted on 04/07/2008 4:36:46 PM PDT by SmithL
The Ventura County Star said it has terminated contracts with two freelance columnists after finding evidence of plagiarism in their work.
Jim Woodard, who wrote weekly columns on new businesses and real estate, used material from other sources, including the Wall Street Journal, without attribution, the Star said in a story published on April 2.
The Star said it found a total of four suspected incidents of plagiarism since early November in Woodard's real estate column in the Sunday homes section.
In a Feb. 20 story, the Star said it found evidence of plagiarism in two columns by David Burroughs, who wrote the weekly Surfing Scene.
Material in one column came from a radio report while another offering included paragraphs from the New York Times, the Star said.
E-mail messages seeking comments from Woodard and Burroughs were not immediately returned.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
fyi
I didn't know this was a big deal. I get two newspaper and 9 times out of 10 the big national story is word for word the same in both.
I thought lazy journalism was all that was taught nowadays.
The National stories are frequently straight off of the AP newsfeed. The papers pay for the right to use it. It’s legal, even if not very creative.
Well I know that, but why do I need them to print it, when I can just read it off the Internet. It is why nobody buys newspapers anymore, they are full of stale news. Unless they find a way to make stale news interesting they are dead. And believe pulling a story off the AP wire is not going to save them.
On the other hand, I’d have a hard time lining my birdcages with CRTs.
A lot of the readers in Ventura County, California, saw this coming. Here the Star is called the “Red Star News” because of its left of center tilt. They are all Obamaphiles. The reporters have no loyality or so it seems.
We wait for the Star to be bought out and replaced by a conservative paper.
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