In case you missed it, Nicole Sobel, a columnist for The Collegian has admitted to plagiarizing an article from the New York Times. I’m not too sure of the exact timeline of how things shook out but if you look at the comments board attached to the article, you can see that some readers began calling the veracity of her article into question on Monday afternoon — once again demonstrating the power of the Web. Sobel is not the first writer to be fact-checked by the Web’s user community and will certainly not be the last.
Yet, despite the ubiquity of the Web — the knowledge that the reach of what you write is far and wide — writers continue to plagiarize. This situation reached the boiling point Tuesday when a blog known as the NYTPicker posted an entry accusing Sobel of plagiarizing a recently-published New York times article. The authors — I can’t name them because they apparently prefer to hide behind a cloak of anonymity — also sought comment from those involved, leading to this posting, which the anonymous authors say came from Sobel:
COMMENT FROM NICOLE SOBEL: In an email to The NYTPicker tonight, University of Massachusetts student Nicole Sobel had this comment on her plagiarism of the McWilliams column in the Daily Collegian:
In terms of my comment, the only thing I have to say is that I apologize, and that I have no excuse, I was going through alot and was under alot of pressure with schoolwork, and copied some of the article from the NY times, because I didn’t have the time to write alot of my own stuff that day. I have written wonderful things in the past, and am completely capable of it, this is the first time i’ve ever done anything like this and I apologize to the Daily Collegian for my mistake, and to the original columnist from the NY times, I’m honestly truly sorry, and regret it – I was in a rush, and didn’t know what to do to finish my article, so I took a bad route. It’s never happened before in my life, and I do not plan to do it ever again, it’s not in my character to even do something like this. I made a mistake, and It will never happen again, and like I said before i offer my deepest apologies.
As in most semesters, I’ve had many discussions in my classes this semester about ethical issues. There have been some interesting discussions. Conflict of interest always seems to garner heated debate. I know of three journalism students who hold or have held positions within political organizations on campus and we’ve talked in class about whether such behavior presents an inherent conflict of interest. Several of the students defended having one leg in journalism and one leg in activism, saying many of the new journalism outlets out there — such as The Huffington Post — are looking for journalists with a specific point of view. It was an interesting point, but one that worries me. We have way too many journalists in the mainstream and independent realm operating with blatant conflicts of interest. Credibility is really the only currency journalists barter with and it’s jeopardized if you’re acting as both observer and activist.
Which brings us to plagiarism. It’s nice that Sobel shares her reasons as to why she did what she did. But as a student of journalism, she, and As all journalism majors know, that plagiarism is a fireable offense out there in the real world. Your reasons don’t matter. You do it, you get fired. You don’t pass ‘go.’ You don’t collect $200. You don’t get a second chance, no matter how much ‘pressure’ you are under.
Journalism is a deadline-driven profession. On most days, you will be under pressure one way or the other — it’s the nature of the beast. In today’s competitive 24-hour news cycle, the pressures are even greater. ‘Pressure’ has lead to an increased use of anonymous sources, while rumor reporting is out of control. Cable television throws spaghetti against the wall when reporting, throwing reporting everything out there, and separating rumor from fact at some later date, if at all.
If anything, ‘pressures’ should be a signal to all journalists to slow down a bit. My old boss at washingtonpost.com was fond of saying: “I would rather be second and right than first and wrong.” It’s a mantra to live by.
As student journalists, you have options. If you are feeling rushed in handing in a piece for publication or class and feel the need to steal someone else’s work, please understand that you are stealing. Your profession is all about seeking out the truth, being transparent in your work and being honest with your audience. If you feel the need to steal someone else’s work, step back and re-think what you’re doing. In the end, missing a deadline or handing in a paper late is a momentary setback that can be remedied. Committing plagiarism is the cardinal sin of our profession and a sin few recover from.
Steve
Apr 15, 2009 @ 17:09:06
As a student journalist at UMass, I find this to be infuriating. I work 50-60 hours a week between my three jobs, put in 8-15 hours a week as an unpaid intern, carry a challenging courseload and still managed to make the Fall 2008 Dean’s List. “Pressure” is not an excuse. THERE IS NO EXCUSE. I am happy to say I have never been guilty of plagiarism, and hope the public knows that the vast majority of UMass student journalists and Collegian writers are ethical, talented, and factually diligent. Shame on her for her despicable actions of stealing someone’s hard work, and shame on her for putting the Collegian and the department under scrutiny. I hope other young journalists understand the seriousness of this situation, because I am sure Nicole Sobel will never get a job in the field of professional journalism.
Apr 15, 2009 @ 22:06:38
Just wanted to chip in that I hope people as an indictment of the school paper. I can guarentee that 99% of stuff published in the Daily Collegian is original, honest, and written to the best of the writer’s ability.
It’s a shame how one plagiarism offense, though it is grave, can jeopardize the entire newspaper’s credibility.
Media Criticism » Plagiarism at the Collegian
Apr 15, 2009 @ 22:42:37
Apr 16, 2009 @ 01:01:44
Emily Jenkins
Wow great for you…we’re all so proud you work so hard…no one cares. I think everyone is overreacting. Its a college newspaper and setting Ms. Sobel up for failure is something as a student and member of the UMass community is dispicable. If you look at her prior work it is ethical, factual, and her own work.
PS why didn’t the editors catch this before they ran it uh duh?
Apr 16, 2009 @ 01:52:38
KC, is that really your defense to Nicole’s actions? Yes, the editors probably should have caught such a blatant example of plagiarism, but the blame ultimately lies with Ms. Sobel. She knew what she was doing was wrong; she *stole* someone else’s work. There is absolutely no excuse for that. It was no accident.
Prior history has nothing to do with what she did. No one is setting her up for failure; she brought this on herself. Better to have turned in no work than work for which she can claim no credit. And lest you continue to dwell on the fact that this is apparently her *only* screw up, remember that bad behavior starts somewhere.
Apr 16, 2009 @ 03:27:26
I love what the Internet can offer journalism, including the kind of gotcha’ citizen-fact-checking that got us at The Collegian in hot water over this.
For the record, we deserve every criticism we get. Should have caught it. No excuses.
But what is it about the anonymity and semi-anonymity that allows people to behave like assholes towards their fellow human beings?
Plagiarism is a fireable offense and the woman was fired.
But ours is the first generation that learns their lessons under the watchful eye of Google. How many working journalists now can see the stupid mistakes they made in college in a searchable archive, not to mention what all the people commenting anonymously – without any accountability – have to say about them on DailyCollegian.com and, to some extent, this blog?
The Web journalism of the very near future has to have some new rules of accountability and conduct for journalists and their readers, especially as the lines between the two blur.
But Steve is right. Nothing changes about plagiarism, and I don’t really know why anyone would even try it these days.
Apr 16, 2009 @ 22:26:41
Emily Jenkins,
RELAX. The girl was stressed out and made a bad choice. Maybe it will affect her somewhere down the road but really it’s not that big of a deal. She was caught for it and that’s embarrassing enough. She doesn’t need someone preaching to her about how tough life is, yours in particular. So I hope you feel better now that you belittled Nicole after she has already been publicly humiliated. I’m sure you made her already stressful week that much better. Everyone makes mistakes, except for you apparently.
Apr 17, 2009 @ 03:20:34
It is incredibly disheartening to read what KC and Ms. McOsker have written about this matter being, in McOsker’s words, “not that big of a deal.”
It certainly is that big of a deal, and unfortunately Ms. Sobel has to take the fall in order to prevent her fellow students from being taught the wrong lesson: that you can get away with this. People are “overreacting,” because the severity of the transgression has to be made clear. Yeah, it sucks that Sobel is being humiliated, but her experience will hopefully put the fear of God into anyone who may at some point be tempted to steal someone else’s work.
This scandal affects the Collegian’s reputation as well as the Journalism program’s. It affects the value of every UMass j-degree that has been or will be earned, including my own.
So knock it off with the making stuff up already.
Mr. Feldman, is 99% originality good enough? I know you didn’t mean to say that one in every hundred Collegian stories is false, but it’s important to keep in mind that no percentage is acceptable.
At the heart of what we do is the paradox that no one, writer or reader, can expect 100% accuracy and objectivity. Nonetheless, we must DEMAND nothing less than 100% accuracy and objectivity from journalists. There’s no room for slack here.
Apr 17, 2009 @ 04:11:38
It’s theft, period.
I agree with Steve that the new trend of leaving one foot in activism and another in journalism is frightening.
The argument that something is simply okay because of the digital age is pathetic. What’s happened to responsibility?
I find it interesting that someone can argue “there is no excuse for x” but then in the next (or same) sentence say but “I’m too busy and here’s my list of reasons (excuses) for doing it.”
Journalists are busy people and if that’s the career you want to pursue, like many of us, you better get used to it.
We’re all human and make mistakes, but mistakes aren’t intentional — plagiarism is.
Apr 17, 2009 @ 04:25:51
As a doctoral student, we discuss plagiarism and its ramifications often as we must write a dissertation. I think the most tragic thing about this story was the intent. This wasn’t like failing to use a proper citation, but still trying to give proper credit. This was an attempt to take another’s ideas as her own—I simply am shocked that a journalism major could violate such a sacred principle of the work…
p.s. Emily Jenkins—Keep up the hard work and don’t let simple minded blowhards like KC make you feel any less proud
Apr 17, 2009 @ 05:08:41
I’m a UMass j-school alum, and wrote for the collegian as well. I have to say, I HOPE Nicole never, ever gets a job in journalism. Period. She doesn’t deserve it. Can’t say that this is the first student to do this in the collegian – and won’t be the last…but none of those other students became successful journalists after graduation. Anyone saying this isn’t a big deal simply doesn’t get it. Once you leave your little UMass bubble, you’ll learn a lesson: plagiarism is a big deal!!
Another sad case « The Whippersnapper
Apr 17, 2009 @ 14:54:37
Apr 17, 2009 @ 21:15:59
This has been an interesting discussion. Part of my hope in writing this blog entry was to be transparent and have an open discussion on the issue of plagiarism.
Some of the comments that I’ve seen here and on The Collegian’s Web site have hinted at the “it was just a mistake” defense. As you can see from many of the comments here, journalism students out there don’t necessarily agree. Most journalists I’ve spoken with see the issue in black and white terms as well.
As for the anonymous comments issue raised by Sean, it’s a debate that has been ongoing in Web journalism for years. My old boss, Doug Feaver, recently wrote about it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/08/AR2009040803248.html
In the interest of transparency, I’ll let you know that I control what comments appear on this blog. As the administrator, I get an email when someone posts a comment. I then go into the back-end of wordpress and approve (or not) the comments.
My criteria has been to make sure people are on point and not using profane language. I approved the anonymous commenters in an effort to let the conversation evolve.
Steve
Apr 22, 2009 @ 17:24:51
As a journalism student here at the university, I don’t think plagiarism is ever acceptable. There is no excuse for Sobel, and people should not give her a break. She is a journalism major, she is supposed to be the watchdog.
At least at this level, she is only hurting herself. Her degree will be worth nothing now and I’m not sure how any of her peers of teachers will be able to respect her. The Collegian is used to people missing deadlines, that would have been the right thing to do.
Deehan, it’s true, 100% accuracy isn’t possible as we are human beings who are writing this and people do make mistakes. But we all aim to be at 100%. Scott couldn’t say 100% of Collegian content is original because we’ve had cases of plagiarism before, how about 99.9999999% We’re as close as we can be.
Though it should have been caught, no one expects that their writer is going to do this. Should we all just start copying and pasting every paragraph into Google as a way of fact checking?
Journalism majors here on a whole have a lot more class than this. Unfortunately she has now tarnished our reputation.
Apr 23, 2009 @ 15:02:19
Apr 23, 2009 @ 19:28:29
It’s a little puzzling to me, the fact that so many have been quick to leap to Ms. Sobel’s defense when by all accounts, what she did was very wrong. Both here and online, as well as in a recent Letter to the Editor at The Collegian, people have been eager to defuse the situation, or conversely, to divert blame away from Ms. Sobel and towards the paper, its editors, or even to the journalism department, whom some believe should stay mum on the subject. Huh? It seems so ridiculously evasive. Since grade school, we’ve had the same message beaten into our skulls repeatedly: stealing someone else’s work is a bad thing – a punishable thing in academia. There’s no excuse. She should have known better. However, to echo Sean’s statement, these articles do go through multiple sets of eyes, and the blame does rest partly with The Collegian. Should the editors have enough savvy to realize when someone is blatantly ripping off a Times op-ed piece (that was only published a few days prior)? Yeah. They should. In lieu of knowing right away, they ideally should be fact-checking to such an extent that it doesn’t escape unnoticed. But that’s not always what happens, because editors like to operate on the basic assumption that people aren’t going to steal. Miss deadlines; screw up some punctuation; forget AP Style – that happens. Stealing an article is a less typical occurrence. Should copy editors and desk editors approach each article more gingerly, and with more cynicism? One would think that it wouldn’t be necessary, but as a consequence of Ms. Sobel’s actions, it’s become a more immediate concern.
May 11, 2009 @ 12:41:12
Yes, we all know that plagiarism is bad and Ms. Sobel has apologized for it. There exists University sanctions, process of law or employment oversight that should account for her actions.
It is a shame that Ms. Sobel be cast into a negative public limelight by a faculty member who should be helping to education her. It is unethical to continue a spiraling negative forum of this nature. I challenge Mr. Fox to take down this blog.
May 18, 2009 @ 06:10:39
Andrew,
This faculty member is doing nothing wrong. He wrote about the facts. She made the choice to plagiarize, and this is a consequence of her actions. It really doesn’t get any worse in journalism than plagiarizing; why should she be exempt from reaping what she has sown? An apology doesn’t earn her a clean slate. Think again.
May 18, 2009 @ 11:06:17
Skeptic,
Yes, this faculty is absolutely doing something wrong. By no means am I excusing the actions of Ms. Sobel — you need to actual read what I wrote before commenting. Mr. Fox’s public postings of this matter are in poor taste at the very best. So, are you saying that social embarrassment is a preferable (let alone acceptable) solution to the problem of plagiarism? It is disappointing that Ms. Sobel was not approached through appropriate channels rather than an unprofessional social ostracism.
What is the goal of this blog? To help teach Ms. Sobel a lesson or allow faculty to socially exploit those they should be helping? Shame on you.
May 19, 2009 @ 15:16:58
Mr. Fox said nothing here that would amount to “unprofessional social ostracism,” as you so put it. In fact, most of the article wasn’t even about Ms. Sobel, but plagiarism in general. Perhaps it is you who needs to re-read before commenting. And what was Mr. Fox to do, write to Nicole and ask her if printing this piece would be okay? Ridiculous.
He’s not exploiting anyone (you really should look up the definition of the word), much less socially exploiting her (whatever that means). Plagiarism is a serious issue in the world of journalism, and she deserves to have this blog show up in a Google search of her name by future employers.
It’s not Mr. Fox’s job to protect any student after he or she has so flagrantly flouted University policy. Had this been in a class, she would have automatically failed, and perhaps even been expelled. So, I’ll take on no shame, thank you. Mr. Fox is doing other students a favor by commenting on just what can happen to them if they choose to follow Ms. Sobel’s lead.
May 19, 2009 @ 16:09:03
Mr. Fox should have left it alone. It was not his work that was plagiarized. The unknown authors of NYT didn’t care at the time.
My use of the word exploit is appropriate. Mr. Fox is manipulating the situation to his advantage. I never stated that plagiarism is not a large problem — you should read before you write.
This was not in a class or academic setting. It happened by coincidence at the University’s newspaper that has no direct academic correlation.
Why do you choose to remain anonymous here? Identity and shame go together.
What favor is Mr. Fox doing other students? That they will be bad mouthed on a blog by anonymous individuals who focus on the problem rather than a solution. Good luck in this world and make sure to wear protective gear.