The New York Times has fired a reporter for plagiarism. He is described as an "aggressive young reporter" who, nevertheless, has had over 50 printed corrections in his fairly short career.
The obvious point: so much for plagiarism being practiced only by unqualified internet journalists, eh?
But Laurence Simon, a news professional, talks about the most important angle of the story. By doing so, he does a dangerous thing: he touches the real third rail of American politics. The mainstream press probably isn't ready to examine this openly yet, but with any luck we're only a few years away from the day when they finally will.
Here's something I like about Generation X--my generation--reaching its 30s. We're less afraid than the older generation to talk honestly about what the world's really like when it comes to these things. Because we have nothing to apologize for, and are increasingly unafraid to speak bluntly about issues our elders were either afraid of, or too blinded by ideology, to discuss rationally.
Plagiarism?
What a laugh...
Back in the last six months of 1962, when I was a punk reporter working for the United Press International (UPI) bureau in Des Moines, Iowa, the new guys were assigned to the overnight shift. That meant opening up the office at 4am, two hours before the unionized teletype operators came to work. The overnight guy (one per night) did a number of things first thing in the morning.
First, he went around the corner to get a paper cup filled with wakemeup (you wouldn't want to lie and call it coffee) from the all-night greasy spoon.
Second, he walked over to newspaper vending machine and bought a copy of the Des Moines Register.
Third, he walked back to the upstairs offices in the building where UPI operated out of, and opened up the place.
Fourth, he quickly scanned the newspaper for any local news we didn't already know about from the B-wire teletypes that clanked through the days and nights.
Fifth, he rewrote (which means copying while changing around the grammar and adjectives ever so slightly) the newspaper news into small tidbits for local newspapers and radio/tv stations that subscribed to our service.
Sixth, he transmitted this stuff on the C-wire teletypes. Rip-and-read format for the broadcasters (the "newsmen" there confined their efforts to ripping this stuff off the teletype and reading it over the air), and NYT/Chicago Trib style format for the local newspapers.
(Luckily, I had been trained to do touch-typing in the US Army nine years earlier, or I never could have kept up with the teletype tape.)
Anyway, depending on how you look at it, that had to be real McCoy plagiarism. But nobody gave a shit, and that was what they paid us to do. Among other things.
So why pick on this junior Pulitzer who just got canned from the New York Times?
(In case you were wondering, was there an A-wire system? You bet your ass there was. You could in theory even break into this from a local bureau and start feeding copy out to the world from there. In theory. But the bossmen made it clear that you were never ever to do that unless it were for something like God himself appearing in downtown Des Moines, or something of that caliber. Anyway, God never came to Des Moines while I worked there, so I kept my fingers of the A-wire teletypes and just read the heavyduty national and international stuff clicking out from them, just like the other citizens).
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Here's what I predict about Gen X -- you will find it equally, and probably more, difficult to remedy (or even honestly address) the situations described herein. The previous generations were not stupid or blind or afraid. But...it's even more of a losing proposition now than it was then, given another generation's worth of encrustation of tribal and identity and entitlement politics. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't believe that I am.
Here's something I like about Generation X--my generation--reaching its 30s. We're less afraid than the older generation to talk honestly about what the world's really like when it comes to these things.
Hoo-ha! That is the biggest load of stinking, steaming crap I've heard in a long, long time, my good friend.
but I mean that in the nicest way possible.
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I'm with Ara there. Gen X (of which I am a member) is even more entrenched in the PC indoctrination than our forebears are. Unless you mean the conservative Gen Xers. Therein lies our hope? Maybe-if we aren't afraid to speak the truth for fear of getting shouted down by the liberal crowd.
My experience is that Gen-X and younger is far more willing to confront things like this openly. Which is all to the good, so far as I'm concerned.
Oh, as for the issue of plagiarism:
The accusation against this young reporter goes much deeper than I think you ken, Arnold. First, because the young man appears to have lifted the whole story from a single source. Second, and probably more important, the New York Times claims to offer original news content based on one-on-one interviews, not to just be pulling stuff it got off the wire. It's a bigger deal for them to just take stuff off the wire than your average small town daily. Especially when they don't say they've done it. This kid should have known better--and apparently, has had ample warning before about being so sloppy.
My experience is that Gen-X and younger is far more willing to confront things like this openly. Which is all to the good, so far as I'm concerned.
[sigh]
You'll learn.
Ah 'tis a pity youth is wasted on the young...
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Being from the tail end of the Baby Boom generation myself, I share neither the "tribal encrustation" view nor the "we're more willing to confront things openly" view of Gen-X or any other arbitrary chronological identity.
I subscribe to the "please, please, please try to learn from the mistakes of your elders" view, where both of the above mistakes have been made in spades, repeatedly, since the beginning of time.
Some of the things that have survived from antiquity have done so because not one of the myriad generations since then, has come up with anything better. In most cases, I think this is more because "new" ideas tend not to stand up well when tested against reality.
But even I have only a few decades' observation to go on, so...
;-)
Oh, I'm not being tribalist. I don't believe Gen-X is inherently better than any other generation. But I do believe that generational identities, as vague as they are, really do matter. Those who dismiss them miss the fact that we do learn from our elders, and that certain events loom larger in your life when you're younger than when you're older. Also, the simple fact is that research shows that Gen-Xers do have a different outlook on certain things.
In the particular case of racism: any rational person can see that any system based on giving preferences to one race over another is a moral abomination.
Indeed, most people do recognize this. Any survey that's ever been done on racial preferences in the guise of "Affirmative Action" shows that a majority of people oppose them--which is what makes certain people sound so damned funny when they claim that the "hard right" opposes Affirmative Action, but that "moderates" are for it. What a joke.
Anyway, there are only two mentalities which can possibly try to apologize for these vile systems: Politically Correct thinking, which tries to excuse the inexcusable, or, the Racial Cringe mentality, in which people are afraid to speak the truth for fear of being branded racists.
It is my experience that the younger people are, they less inclined they are either to PC thinking or to the Racial Cringe mentality. Precisely because they have learned from their elders.
On race issues in particular, Gen-Xers are the first generation to have absolutely nothing to apologize for. Because none of them remembers a time when racial equality was not enshrined into law. OTOH, we're the first ones to realize the hypcricy of the current system, which makes discrimination okay as long as the "right" races are the beneficiaries. We won't keep putting up with it.
Gen-X will also be the one to finally realize Franklin Roosevelt's vision and move Social Security toward privatization. Because we're the first generation wherein a majority of us have come to realize that we, and our children, are ripped off by the current system.
You can take both of those to the bank, gentlemen. We will be the generation to finally clean up both of those messes.
Of course, I'm sure we'll create our own messes, and that our children will have to clean some of them up for us. That's the way of the world.
So I'm thinking... "third rail of American politics - what does this have to do with the AARP and pension benefits?"
Joe: Social Security is no longer the third rail. In the last two election cycles in the U.S., politicians who came out swinging against privatization generally did poorly. Those who spoke in favor of it generally did very well.
It's no longer the Third Rail. Most young people want to change Social Security fundamentally. We just have to wait for enough of the old-school reactionaries to die off so we can do the right thing. (Boomers could help with this, if they were open-minded enough about it.)
No, today the real Third Rail of American Politics is racism. Most specifically, the racism that manifests itself in Affirmative Action programs, and the even more insidious racism that makes companies afraid to fire minorities for incompetence. Which happens a lot, even though saying it out loud would be a death sentence for most political careers.
But we all know that it happens. It happens a lot, in fact, even though almost everyone is afraid to say that it does.
The younger people are, the less afraid they are, in my experience. First, because they have less to apologize for, and second, because they see the hypocricy in what older generations have left us with. At least, on this issue. (Gen-Xers will have their own hypocricies, but that's another subject.)
My guess is that when Gen-X is finally in its mid-40s, we'll see real progress on these issues.