Hundreds of Journalists have plagiarized and even fabricated stories just to get ahead in their career... and those are just the ones that have been caught.
Jack Keller of USA Today was turned in by jealous colleagues who knew he didn’t deserve the recognition he was getting. An investigation proved that most of his stories were either plagiarized or completely fabricated. (www.freedomforum.org)
Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for the New York Times, was suspended for two weeks for taking an intern’s article and adding his byline. (www.freedomforum.org)
Janet Cook of the Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for her feature “Jimmy’s Story”, a fabricated story about child drug addiction. Two days later, she returned the prize, publicly apologized, and resigned. (www.freedomforum.org)
I think that most journalists who are caught would blame their decisions on deadlines, writer’s block, a lack of knowledge on their subject, or feeling uninspired. I even think some journalists would go as far as to blame their colleagues with the “but everyone is doing it” excuse.
In a time when any information can be so easily found on the internet, the hardest thing to do is avoid plagiarism. It is also the most nobel thing to do.
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