Another accused plagiarist canned

The Worcester (Ma.) Telegram & Gazette has fired a 20-year veteran sportswriter, claiming he lifted material for his columns verbatim from other sources without attribution.

In Boston Globe and New York Times stories, the T&G’s editor gives examples that make it clear sportswriter Ken Powers used the words and ideas of others without their permission — and that’s the definition of plagiarism.

An unusual wrinkle in this case is that Sports Illustrated writer Peter King, from whom the T&G claims Powers stole material, asked the T&G to be compassionate in its handling of Powers and to keep him on staff, the Globe story said.

I teach media ethics to undergraduates. What should I tell them about this case and why it’s important?

Perhaps I should say that after all, this is “just sports.” Sports writing (and I began my career as a western Massachusetts sportswriter) has the loosest writing and editing standards in journalism, some might say. Game stories, which are supposedly objective accounts of an occurrence, have become larded with the opinion of the sports “reporter.” Sportswriting has become far more an exercise in reportorial ego, some say, rather than a desire to inform the reader — and let readers make up their minds about whether a team stinks.

Perhaps I should point out that much of the professional and undergraduate plagiarism I see is driven by several factors — too much to do in too little time, too little confidence in ones abilities, and so on. Extenuating circumstances often abound in such cases.

So why fire this guy, even in the face of what appears to be compelling evidence provided by his editor that he cheated?

Is it because journalism cannot afford cheaters any more? After all, journalism has taken nasty credibility hits lately, from Jayson Blair to Rathergate.

Who believes journalists anymore — especially “mainstream” journalists in print dailies and weeklies and Big Net broadcasts?

But is that the real lesson here? Not necessarily.

We in the journalism biz (or journalism teaching biz) tut-tut over plagiarism and say, “We can’t have cheaters. It stains all of us.”

But what his editor says Powers did tells me Powers didn’t think much of his readers.

The continuing acts of plagiarism suggest journalists don’t think much of the public. They don’t have confidence in the public. They don’t think their readers are smart enough to catch them, perhaps.

The crisis in confidence cuts both ways. The public doesn’t have faith in journalism, and journalism doesn’t have faith in the public.

Journalists these days seem to spend too little time off the phone and out from behind their desks and getting out among the people. Is it possible they’ve disconnected from their readers and viewers a bit too much?

See this Pew Center report — “Commentary: A Crisis of Confidence” — by Bill Kovach , Tom Rosenstiel and Amy Mitchell for a far more elegant take on this line of thinking and other issues affecting the credibility of journalism.

Advertisement