Is Maureen Dowda plagiarist?

A close call for one of ourmost celebrated columnists

Josh Marshall

May 15: “More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”

Maureen Dowd

May 17: “More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”

Caught by Josh the Blogger

“[I]f this isn’t outright plagiarism by a top NY Times Editorialist, than [sic] I’m a happily married, straight man with 4 kids, 2 dogs, a lovely 2nd wife of 15 years with a girl half my age on the side. Which I assure you all, I am not.”

Dowd’s excuse

E-mail to Huffington Post: “i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column.

“but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me.

“we're fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow.”

Is Dowd’s excuse credible?

• How do you copy a 43-word passage almost verbatim from “talking” with a friend?

Is Dowd’s excuse credible?

• How do you copy a 43-word passage almost verbatim from “talking” with a friend?

• She later said it was by e-mail. If you were e-mailing with someone, would you call it “talking”?

Is Dowd’s excuse credible?

• How do you copy a 43-word passage almost verbatim from “talking” with a friend?

• She later said it was by e-mail. If you were e-mailing with someone, would you call it “talking”?

• Wouldn’t it make more sense if she’d copied and pasted, then forgot to give credit?

When Mo met Joe

In 1988, Dowd’s story that Joe Biden had plagiarized from a speech by Neil Kinnock drove him out of the race. In fact, he had credited Kinnock on many other occasions.

The story also cost Michael Dukakis his campaign manager.

Howell of outrage

In 1998, Times editorial-page editor and Dowd friend Howell Raines ripped the Times Co.-owned Globe for its light punishment of Mike Barnicle. Raines wrote: “Trust is the glue that holds newsrooms together and ultimately binds readers to a specific newspaper and to newspapers in general.”

How the Times responded

• Dowd was allowed to fix her column online

How the Times responded

• Dowd was allowed to fix her column online

• Correction: “Maureen Dowd’s column on Sunday, about torture, failed to attribute a paragraph about the timeline for prisoner abuse to Josh Marshall’s blog at Talking Points Memo.”

Andrew Rosenthal’s comment

“Journalists often use feeds from other staff journalists, free-lancers, stringers, a whole range of people. And from friends. Anyone with even the most passing acquaintance with Maureen’s work knows that she is happy and eager to give people credit.”

Clark Hoyt’s assessment

“I do not think Dowd plagiarized, but I also do not think what she did was right…. [R]eaders have a right to expect that even if an opinion columnist like Dowd tosses around ideas with a friend, her column will be her own words. If the words are not hers, she must give credit.”

Catherine Mathis

Times spokeswoman was asked if Dowd had been suspended. Her answer: “Maureen is on vacation. Since she didn’t do anything wrong, there would be no reason for a suspension.”

Discussion points

• Does plagiarism require intent?

Discussion points

• Does plagiarism require intent?– Northeastern defines plagiarism as

“intentionally representing the words, ideas, or data of another as one’s own ... without providing proper citation.”

Discussion points

• Does plagiarism require intent?– Northeastern defines plagiarism as

“intentionally representing the words, ideas, or data of another as one’s own ... without providing proper citation.”

– If Dowd did not plagiarize Marshall, did she nevertheless plagiarize her friend?

Discussion points

• Does plagiarism require intent?– Northeastern defines plagiarism as

“intentionally representing the words, ideas, or data of another as one’s own ... without providing proper citation.”

– If Dowd did not plagiarize Marshall, did she nevertheless plagiarize her friend?

– What would happen to a student who’d done what Dowd says she did?

Discussion points

• Does Marshall have a say in this?

Discussion points

• Does Marshall have a say in this?– He wrote: “I generally think we’re too quick

to pull the trigger with charges of plagiarism. I haven’t said anything about this because I really didn’t think I had anything to add. Whatever the mechanics of how it happened, I never thought it was intentional. Dowd and the Times quickly corrected it, which I appreciated. And for me, that’s pretty much the end of it.”

Discussion points

• Does it matter that this was apparently a one-time incident?

Discussion points

• Does it matter that this was apparently a one-time incident?– We may assume that bloggers pored over

everything she’s ever written and found nothing

Discussion points

• Does it matter that this was apparently a one-time incident?– We may assume that bloggers pored over

everything she’s ever written and found nothing

– Is a Pulitzer winner likely to start plagiarizing in her late 50s?

Discussion points

• Did the Times handle this well or not?

Discussion points

• Did the Times handle this well or not?– Based on the facts as we know them,

should she have been punished?

Discussion points

• Did the Times handle this well or not?– Based on the facts as we know them,

should she have been punished?– Does lack of punishment feed into distrust

of media? Or is her lack of malign intent enough?

“Beat the Press” discussion