PressEthic

From Romenesko...

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2005

Californian reporter fired for lifting quote, four paragraphs Bakersfield Californian

Californian executive editor Mike Jenner says a quote in a story on teen smoking that was attributed to a 10-year-old girl is identical to a statement attributed to a 4-year-old girl involved in a study of what preschoolers think about cigarettes and smoking. Also, reporter Nada Behziz included almost verbatim four paragraphs of a story about teen smoking published by the San Francisco Examiner in 1995. Behziz, who has been fired, says: "To me it was sloppy journalism. It wasn't intentional."

How can someone, after stealing a quote and four paragraphs from another writer, say it wasn’t intentional? OF COURSE it was intentional – who is she kidding?

I wonder if she had just attributed her quotes and paragraphs to the San Francisco Examiner if Behziz would have kept her job. Obviously then she would just be seen as a lazy journalist and not a lying, cheating, thief who thinks that readers are complete idiots.

What baffles me more and more about these unearth scandals is the fact that the readers are finding these journalists guilty of plagiarism and not their editors. I would think that an article on a topic as widely covered as cigarettes and smoking there would be some sort of fact checking going on at the paper.

I found a posting about this story on the blog rpv.blogspot.com. The writer shares some interesting views on checks and balances vs. trust in the business of journalism.

"You cannot have it both ways. If you have checks and balances but can be bypassed because you "trust" a reporter, your system is broken. This is the same reason why Mitch Albom got caught lying because his editor let stuff slide on the basis of his position in the paper. I guarantee if you did a spot check on these type of stories with the people angle in it around the country, you will find fake/copied quotes. These are the articles every editor should be checking before going to print."

I agree what this angry blogger is saying. Unfortunately trust isn’t a luxury editors can afford anymore – no matter what the circumstances.

I don’t have a solution to the problem that wouldn’t include hiring actual fact checkers at national level newspapers. If journalists knew for certain that their articles were going to be checked before going to print it would cut back on plagiarism and fake quotes.

If it is going to be the editor’s job to sniff out liars, than perhaps there should be more of them in the news room.