2008 Woodie Awards
The right response to plagiarism
Issue date: 5/27/08 Section: Editorial
As news has become almost instantaneously available with the business of journalism being vaulted into an age of digitalization, the thefts of people's work, albeit literary or graphically, have become increasingly easy and inevitable.
It may seem petty that The San Matean reminds its readers of the theft Skyline College's student run publication, The Skyline View, committed in April 2007. But it only seems petty because there is still a plagiarism lesson to be learned at our sister college's newspaper.
That lesson - that stealing is wrong, in any context.
Last April, The View lifted verbatim text from a story appearing in an April 16, 2007 issue of The San Matean. In trying to make a positive learning experience of the theft, we demanded that The View permanently remove the plagiarized material from their website and offer a public appropriate apology. The View has yet to do either.
Only recently, The View has yet again committed plagiarism, this time however, it wasn't literary. In The View's March 27 issue, a graphic appeared on the front page that was credited to John Harrison. An incorrect correction was filed in The View's next issue dated April 10, reading - "The graphic in "Boosting our economy" was credited to John Harrison incorrectly and should have been credited to google.com…"
The graphic is actually copyrighted James Nazz and Corbis.com, a website that has images for sale.
Craig Chapman, San Francisco Chronicle photo editor, has his own view on theft of images. "Ethically it sucks. Because you're taking a picture from someone who is trying to make their living," he said. "It's stealing.
"And I think student publications have to act like professional publications or they really don't mean much of anything," he added.
This latest theft by The View is a mistake any publication can make. Even The San Matean has been known to take a photo from a website and only attribute it.
But whether the plagiarism is literary or graphically, it's plagiarism all the same. Theft is theft. And even once you've stolen something, the very least you can do is offer an honorable correction, explanation and citation for the lifted material.
It may seem petty that The San Matean reminds its readers of the theft Skyline College's student run publication, The Skyline View, committed in April 2007. But it only seems petty because there is still a plagiarism lesson to be learned at our sister college's newspaper.
That lesson - that stealing is wrong, in any context.
Last April, The View lifted verbatim text from a story appearing in an April 16, 2007 issue of The San Matean. In trying to make a positive learning experience of the theft, we demanded that The View permanently remove the plagiarized material from their website and offer a public appropriate apology. The View has yet to do either.
Only recently, The View has yet again committed plagiarism, this time however, it wasn't literary. In The View's March 27 issue, a graphic appeared on the front page that was credited to John Harrison. An incorrect correction was filed in The View's next issue dated April 10, reading - "The graphic in "Boosting our economy" was credited to John Harrison incorrectly and should have been credited to google.com…"
The graphic is actually copyrighted James Nazz and Corbis.com, a website that has images for sale.
Craig Chapman, San Francisco Chronicle photo editor, has his own view on theft of images. "Ethically it sucks. Because you're taking a picture from someone who is trying to make their living," he said. "It's stealing.
"And I think student publications have to act like professional publications or they really don't mean much of anything," he added.
This latest theft by The View is a mistake any publication can make. Even The San Matean has been known to take a photo from a website and only attribute it.
But whether the plagiarism is literary or graphically, it's plagiarism all the same. Theft is theft. And even once you've stolen something, the very least you can do is offer an honorable correction, explanation and citation for the lifted material.
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