Anything to say about Thayer’s plagiarism?

Thought not.

You can get as outraged as you want, but there are still significant parts of your article that don’t have the full and proper attribution: the Rick Santorum quote from 2012, which you have fudged with a false date, is in fact from Mark Zeigler’s 2006 piece; the passage about Madeleine Albright’s visit, nearly a verbatim lift from Zeigler’s article; Carlin’s quote starting ‘We did not handle it as wisely…’ needs a clear attribution to Zeigler; you need a correction and explanation for a missing segment of one Carlin quote that hasn’t been indicated at all (‘Buffalo Bill’); and you need much clearer citations for several other quotes. Crucially, with several of Gene Schmiel’s quotes you need to admit that he did not say them to you, but wrote them in American Diplomacy in 2000. Just because you sneakily emailed him and asked if you could ‘use’ the information in that article doesn’t mean you get to pretend that he said it all to you. You knew the source, and deliberately pretended they were original quotes obtained by you.

And you did the same with Larry Niksch for your article for Asia Today. I checked with him.

I get why you think you’re untouchable: if people call your sources, they are a little confused. Because you interviewed them, quite a bit, and got some fresh material from them. But just because you did some stuff right doesn’t mean you didn’t plagiarize. You also email people juicy quotes they’ve said to other journalists or written earlier and ask if you can ‘cite’ those quotes. When they, not being journalists, do not entirely understand your intent and say sure by all means, you then cite them alright – but not to American Diplomacy or Reuters. You present the quotes as having been told to you. They weren’t. You just wanted to steal the quotes and pass them off as your own. Even your interviewees can’t give you permission to do that. You have to cite the sources. Not hide them so you take the credit. This is plagiarism, Mr Thayer, pure and simple.

My second article, on how you do this, is here: http://jeremyduns.blogspot.se/2013/03/how-nate-thayer-plagiarizes.html

If you’re at all serious, please read it and start getting all the proper citations in your article. Santoruim, Carlin, the Albright stuff, American Diplomacy. Then go back to the Asia Today one and anything else you’ve done this with. Start admitting what you do.

And what it is called.

You can get as outraged as you want, but there are still lots of parts of your article that don’t have any attribution to Mark Zeigler’s at all: the Santorum quote, which you have fudged with a false date; the passage about Madeleine Albright’s visit, nearly a verbatim lift from Zeigler’s article; Carlin’s quote starting ‘We did not handle it as wisely…’; a correction and explanation for a missing segment of one quote that hasn’t been indicated; much clearer citations for several other quotes; and with several of Gene Schmiel’s quotes you need to admit that he did not say them to you, but wrote them in American Diplomacy in 2000. Just because you sneakily emailed him and asked if you could ‘use’ that article doesn’t mean you get to pretend that he said it all to you. You knew the source, and deliberately pretended they were oiginal quotes obtained by you.

And you did the same with Larry Niksch for your article for Asia Today. I checked with him. I get why you think you’re untouchable, If people call your sources, they are a little confused. Because you interviewed them, quite a bit, and got some fresh material from them. But you also emailed them juicy quotes they had said to other journalists or written earlier and asked if you could ‘cite’ them. When they, not entirely understanding your intent, said by all means, you then cite them alright – but not to American Diplomacy or Reuters. You presented them as emailed to you. They weren’t. You just wanted to steal the quotes and pass them off as your own. Eve nyour interviewees can’t give you permission to do that. It’s plagiarism, Mr Thayer, pure and simple.

Second article on how you do it here: http://jeremyduns.blogspot.se/2013/03/how-nate-thayer-plagiarizes.html

If you’re at all serious, please read it and start getting all the proper citations in your article. Santoruim, Carlin, the Albright stuff, American Diplomacy. Start admitting what you do.

And what it is called.

They’re a good example of the real, most dangerous plagiarists of the web, the ones who pull out the meat of the story and put one or two sentences at the top to introduce it. They add nothing but take plenty of ad revenue. They usually bury some link at the bottom of the piece and claim that it makes it all okay. The fact is that someone else did 99% of the work that went into a post yet they want to take 99% of the ad revenue.

Plagiarism is not just about attribution it’s about freeloading.

In response to Tom Wilson’s comment, I would add that providing author and title information (at least author and title), as well as a link, enables the reader
(1) to assess the reputation, authority, and credibility of the author (which may add weight if the author is well-known),
and (2) may be useful in tracking down the original if the page linked to moves or changes or disappears.

Or (3), if an editor takes the Word document, copies it into a plain-text-editor which strips all the formatting and all the hyperlinks, and then posts it online.

JRR

“And if you broaden the lens even further, a similar problem is at the root of the fight that Google has been up against in country after country over its use of excerpts from news stories in Google News — stories that come from newspapers and other traditional sources.” [Mathew Ingram at http://paidcontent.org/2013/03/09/plagiarism-and-the-link-how-the-web-makes-attribution-easier-and-more-complicated/%5D or embed that long link in the quote author’s name. There is then no doubt whatsoever that I am using someone else’s words to make a point.