Posted on 01/08/2017 2:53:03 PM PST by Kaslin
Monica Crowley was recently tapped as Donald Trump’s selection to be the Senior Director of Strategic Communications on the National Security Council. Unfortunately for her, former Buzzfeed researcher (now with CNN) Andrew Kaczynski has been digging into her 2012 best seller, What The (Bleep) Just Happened and has turned up multiple instances of obvious plagiarism. Crowley is a long time Fox News host and conservative columnist, so she was no neophyte when it comes to the rules of the road for journalists and authors. Trump is calling this essentially a political hit job, but it’s definitely a problem. (CNN)
Conservative author and television personality Monica Crowley, whom Donald Trump has tapped for a top national security communications role, plagiarized large sections of her 2012 book, a CNN KFile review has found.
The review of Crowley’s June 2012 book, “What The (Bleep) Just Happened,” found upwards of 50 examples of plagiarism from numerous sources, including the copying with minor changes of news articles, other columnists, think tanks, and Wikipedia. The New York Times bestseller, published by the HarperCollins imprint Broadside Books, contains no notes or bibliography.
Crowley did not return a request for comment. Multiple requests for comment by phone and email over the past two days to HarperCollins went unreturned.
Crowley, a syndicated radio host, columnist, and, until recently, a Fox News contributor, will serve as Trump’s senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council.
So is it a “politically motivated attack” as the Trump transition team is saying? Well… this didn’t come out of the Democrats’ oppo files. Kaczynski made his bones in the political news world by specializing in digging through the archives of political figures and dredging up their past to hold in contrast against what they say in the present. Now he’s apparently turning those talents to the field of uncovering plagiarism.
One might argue that the position Crowley is heading toward isn’t really an editorial or publishing job, so what’s the big deal, right? Perhaps those of us who cover these stories are a bit more sensitive than the citizenry at large, but man… it is a big deal. Anyone who writes for a living knows that plagiarizing the work of others is pretty much held on the same level as a war crime. For writers, it’s just about the worst thing you can do. Steven Taylor at Outside the Beltway explains why Crowley, given her background, should have known better.
The link contains the evidence, which is thorough and damning. It is also of a type quite familiar to me after years of teaching and dealing with this kind of thing: the change of a word here and there by the author, as if that is enough to make the words and thoughts original. Really, to me, it is just evidence of knowing theft: the attempt to subtly doctor paragraphs in the hopes that there will be enough change for others not to notice or to create some kind of plausible deniability.
She has a Ph.D. in International Relations from Columbia and she has been a published columnist for decades. She knows exactly what she is doing.
That’s all true. But we also have to ask ourselves if this High Crime among writers is, or even should be enough to sink Crowley for this new job. She’s not going to be an author or editor at the National Security Council. Being willing to commit plagiarism speaks to one’s character to be sure, but it doesn’t always sink people, even in journalism and cable news. Mike Barnicle’s employers at the Boston Globe once demanded his resignation over multiple plagiarism charges and he’d previously been accused of the crime by folks including Mike Royko. Still, you’ll find him on Morning Joe almost every day being introduced as “legendary” by the crew, so people have risen up to new careers after such charges in the past.
At the end of the day, however, the rest of the world doesn’t treat plagiarism as the same sort of High Crime that we do. And it probably won’t sink Crowley on her way to an NSC post.
I thought abou that very possibility, as well. Monica is a word machine.. for all the right things.
I thought abou that very possibility, as well. Monica is a word machine.. for all the right things.
I hope she did, but admit I was taken aback to read she did not. Supposedly not a single one. Hard to believe that’s accurate.
And "go away"? I won't dignify that remark with a response.
Appreciate the attention to detail and reasoned comment. Thanks.
WTF. What else is Obama teleprompted and Hillary with a ear bud?
Both are known to have plagiarized in College, having books written by others in their names and repeating the mantra and strategies of foreign terrorists like robots.
CNN is hardly research, it is part of the problem in plagiarism. When CNN ignores the vast plagiarism of Hillary and Obama, the scandal of Obama repeating like a robot material he never thought off a teleprompter, and the huge amount of material the media and the Obamas got written for them by foreign paper makers, one can only conclude that plagiarism affects such news companies as CNN and is a vast problem in a trolling liberal land.
Yes.
I don’t know whether this is over a line or not. Just saying these did not seem to be TOTALLY cribbed.
Probably depends in large part, on whether there was attribution for the material.
When someone repeats what someone else repeated that someone else repeated, is it true plagiarism? Might as well make any joke or anecdote fall under that category - along with adages like “A stitch in time....” if someone else also “wrote it down”....
If she did not provide attribution for the text in question, it sure it plagiarism.
If an author is not properly sourcing or attributing text, that's on the author. That it got by Harper Collins is on them.
Will request the book on loan to see what the hubbub is about.
Hyperbole is on the same level as 2 war crimes.
I’m a published author with Harper Collins and every quote in my book had to be properly cited. A manuscript goes through multiple editors and proofreaders, so, yes, if there is actual plagiarism, it’s on them for not including source references, if they were required.
Hypocrisy.
And I was speaking for myself.
I agree.
Did she use quotes and footnotes? Or other attribution?
Not plagiarism.
Hard to make a judgement without seeing the texts.
Well, those are just facts. That’s called research.
They are grasping at straws, it appears.
Actually, I was serious, and being very literal-—TWO casual posts of mine detailing the idea that Clinton was a kind of “reverse-Jesus”, and one about Bush and the 9-11 response in the weeks and months following the event, constituted way too much of a “coincidence”. Maybe I can find them to corroborate. They were in her BOOKS.
She also SLEPT with LBJ to get in good with him, while working on a book. These people are the worst kind of hacks.
Sincerest form of flattery!
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