Thoughts on the readings

While reading the Poynter article about the recent plagiarism case surrounding The Maneater, I was astonished to read that some people actually defended Merrill's actions. I think that most journalists of my generation, those who are in school now or who have recently graduated, would agree with me that lifting quotes from other people's articles without attribution is blatant plagiarism. Really - just blatant plagiarism. The definition of it in fact.

That's why I am so surprised that there are people who were defending Merrill's actions. Maybe it's a generational thing. I wonder if a different generation of journalists were trained differently. Maybe while they were in j-school things were done differently and the rules surrounding plagiarism were more blurry and open to interpretation.

In Merrill's response he says that he did not lift the authors written words, and though this is true, it does not make his lifting quotes right. The reporter from The Maneater conducted interviews to get those quotes. Those quotes were her property. And his lifting those quotes makes it look as though they were his property - as if he did the interviews.

While he is apologetic and while I believe he is sincere, I do think the paper did the right thing in canceling his column. If the mistake would have been made by a non-veteran writer, the decision would have been very clear ... fire the writer. Just because Merrill is a senior writer does not mean he should not be held to the same standards.