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.
It’s bad unless your name is Doris Kearns Goodwin and you are a hardcore lib on MSNBC all the time, then its OK.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/01/us/author-goodwin-resigns-from-pulitzer-board.html
The historian Doris Kearns Goodwin resigned yesterday from the board that chooses the winners of the Pulitzer Prize. The prize had begun an inquiry into accusations that Ms. Goodwin copied the work of others in her 1987 book ‘’The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys.’’
The board released a terse letter of resignation from Ms. Goodwin. She wrote that she could no longer devote enough attention to the board because of the controversy surrounding the book and the need to work on a biography of Abraham Lincoln.
People involved with the 19-member board said they believed it was the first time a member had resigned because of a controversy.
Ms. Goodwin has referred all questions to her lawyer, Michael Nussbaum, who did not return calls seeking comment.
Ms. Goodwin acknowledged in January that her publisher, Simon & Schuster, reached a private settlement in 1987 with another author over accusations of plagiarism, agreeing to a payment and the addition of footnotes to the text.
Later, faced with the threat of new complaints, Ms. Goodwin admitted that she had inadvertently copied more passages than previously acknowledged — dozens — and from several sources, but she declined to give more detail
She’s reiterating data to bolster her contention and yes it’s copied and since itscoooed it should be excerpted and cited
But it’s not exactly plagiarism unless she claims it as her original
I’m ambivalent leaning toward sloppy and lazy or lack of time
Damn her editors could except and cite for her
I don’t like it much either
But I hate the left more..lol
Hillary Clinton, claimed she landed in Bosnia under SNIPER FIRE, and was caught in the BLATANT LIE.
After a quick apology, the media never mentioned it again.
This LIAR was chosen by the Democrats to be their nominee for President.
Never ONCE in the campaign did I see or hear the media talk about her LIES regarding Bosnia.
If this was a leftie, we’d tear them apart. A character issue is what it comes down to. People are faced with right and wrong everyday. Why is it so damn hard to choose right? And I do hold conservatives to a higher standard -they are supposed to take the high road.
Will she still be able to perform the job? Probably, but I personally don’t know if I’d give her the chance. YOUR FIRED!
The articles don’t show if she cited or not
Even casual reference would be exonerating
“the original CNN article it is pretty damning and I think she has a BIG problem.”
It was pretty damning that Obama didn’t write his books but Bill Ayers, the domestic terrorist, did. Lefties didn’t mind that.
Plagiarism outside of Academia is overblown.
http://www.newsandtimes.com/2017/01/fake-plagiarism-claims-are-fake-news/
In the link:
Plagiarism is the lifting of original thought. It requires key phrases and insights that could not be gained in a coincidental or natural manner. It is not claiming the sky is blue, that water is wet, or that sun is bright merely because someone else did just that. Statements of raw fact cannot be copyrighted nor claimed to be protected from being used by others. Otherwise, the first film critic who claims that a film is enjoyable could sue anyone else who dares to praise the same work.However, Mr. Kaszynski, and others, are under the impression of just that. Here are some of the obvious mistakes.
A prime example is this point that Monica Crowley properly attributed to Milton Friedman, yet the MSM tried to turn on its head and attribute it to an earlier author that attributed Milton Friedman.
Here's the passage from her book:As the late great economist Milton Friedman pointed out, the true burden on taxpayers is government spending because government borrowing demands future interest payments out of future taxes.
And here's the snippet from a 2011 Journal article by Michael J. Boskin that passage seems to have come from:
As Milton Friedman taught decades ago, the true burden on taxpayers today is government spending; government borrowing requires future interest payments out of future taxes.
If I quote mark Twain and use his words, it is not plagiarism of someone else that quoted Mark Twain and used his words. This charge is ludicrous
Of course the big problem is when the left does it its always excused. But when our side odes it we are never excused because we are always held to a higher standard. They know the left are slimeballs anyway, our side not so much.
If a Freeper has a copy of this book, I would like to read a post that confirms whether or not the supposedly plagiarized portions of the book are properly sourced. If she plagiarized, that matters.
The only worthwhile conclusion from this is the left will do anything to keep Crowley out of this position.
Not gonna happen.
Michael King ( aka Martin Luther King jr. ) ~ Plagiarist
Every Trump admin member better be ready for a colonoscopy by the media.
I am quite certain that Ann and I use many of the same words when we are writing things down.
Whom shall we blame?
Gee, let’s see... Neither Obama or Hillary wrote their ‘books’. Those were written by super secret ghost writers, one of which was claimed to be Bill (weatherman) Aires.
Sure didn’t seem to matter one wit to the MSM, who couldn’t even be bothered to check out the accusations against either one of them. Now they get their panties in a wad about this?
I’d be in trouble for I’ve used ‘nothing new under the sun’ many times without saying where I lifted it from.
I have always said anything from Politico should be taken with a grain of salt and I was right. The same goes for it’s offspring Buzzfeed.
Joe Biden is a very well known plagiarist. Some might remember him serving as our vice-president.
I’ll bet it was her husband who tapped her.
Nothing to see here folks. Stop even paying attention to liberal media.
“It’s liberal media, but is it true?” Don’t. If it’s liberal media, doesn’t even matter if it’s somewhat true — they’re manipulating all the facts. So don’t even consider, OK?
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