PressEthic

I’m baffled by the fact that journalists continue to plagiarize after so many others have ruined their careers. Is plagiarism habitual? Do journalists think they can get away with it? Or is it a product of extremely sloppy reporting? It seems ridiculous that a journalist would consider plagiarizing or fabricating at this point.

Which brings me to Ken Parish Perkins, a TV critic for the Star-Telegram. According to this article by the Star-Telegram's Reader Advocate David House, Perkins copied a paragraph out of an Entertainment Weekly article for a review he wrote on November 10th. A reader noticed the similarity and reported it to the paper. To their credit, the editors of the paper took immediate action by investigating Perkins’ work from the last two years. They found that Perkins plagiarized background information in some of his articles. As you can guess, Perkins no longer works for the Star-Telegram.

Did Perkins think that no one would notice he took an entire paragraph from Entertainment Weekly? Especially considering that Perkins’ article was a review of “Lost,” the ABC program. “Lost” is very popular, and people spend a lot of time talking about the various aspects of the show – as I found out Friday after class outside Carter Hall. Certainly with such a huge following, someone was likely to read both Perkins’ review and the one in Entertainment Weekly. Or was this a result of extremely sloppy reporting?

We may never know what Perkins' intent was, or if he had any at all, but I want to discuss the Star-Telegram’s role in this situation. According to David House, the Star-Telegram makes an exemplary effort to keep its credibility:

The Star-Telegram brings other policies and tools to bear on guarding internally against plagiarism and fabrication, chiefly in response to the recent string of scandals and as steps to assure our readers and staff that we are committed to credible work and cannot abide unethical practices.

Since March 2004, when Witt instituted a fact-checking policy, staff stories have been randomly selected at least once a month for verification of information, quotes, paraphrased comment and original reporting.

Also:

Nearly a year before the fact-checking policy went into effect, the Star-Telegram brought back a tool that had fallen into disuse: the accuracy questionnaire.

This is an eight-question form that I mail to sources in randomly selected stories. The questionnaire basically asks sources whether they were quoted accurately and treated well by staff, but we also ask the source’s opinion of the Star-Telegram and what would make it a better newspaper.

And:

New Star-Telegram readers sometimes are surprised to see corrections published on Page One, but a credibility-conscious policy requires us to publish corrections and clarifications on the cover page of the section in which errors or confusing content were published.

And:

Since 1991, readers also have had a designated editor who serves as the reader advocate — a staffer to whom they may bring questions or concerns about what the Star-Telegram is doing or not doing.

That’s a lot of good stuff. I think this paper does go above and beyond in an effort to catch plagiarists and fabricators, and to correct any mistakes it makes. But, it is still not enough.

However, I think the Star-Telegram’s response and its continual attempt to maintain its credibility is commendable. I wonder if the effort alone is enough to keep its readers happy.