A BEN DOMENECH PLAGIARISM SCANDAL?
I’ve had my differences with Domenech in the past, but I hope there’s nothing to this. Some earlier writings of mine on plagiarism can be found here and here.
UPDATE: Here’s more from Howard Kurtz.
ANOTHER UPDATE: And from Michelle Malkin.
MORE: Still more here.
STILL MORE: Ben Domenech has resigned. I think they should replace him with Bill Hobbs — experienced journalist and blogger! Or maybe Bill Quick, though he’s not exactly Red.
Analysis here.
EVEN MORE: Bill Quick is honored to be nominated but doubts it would work out:
Good heavens! If the Kossacks et al hated Domenech, can you imagine how they would feel about me? Not to mention the Bush-bots and the committed religious? And the field day they’d have rooting through my years and years of writing on the net, not just on blogs, but in newsgroups and my published work?
The only way they could run me as a blogger would be as “The Blogger Who Pisses Everybody Off.” I doubt they are interested in that kind of thing.
Upside for Bill — it might improve sales of his past work!
Meanwhile, NewsAlert observes that all is not lost: “Still available to blog for the Washington Post are Doris Kearns Goodwin,Laurence Tribe,and Mike Barnicle.”
And Jon Henke comments on the underlying debate:
Ideological equality at newspapers? I don’t recall the Left being worked up about this before….. …but I’m very interested to see them pursue it at the New York Times, too!
Indeed. And Dave Price emails: “If not Bill Quick, why not Jeff Goldstein? The Left has already been about as abusive to him as they can be.” Yep. And it rolls right off. Plus, who could read Goldstein’s stuff and even imagine that it had been previously published?
FINALLY: Don Surber emails: “WaPo took your advice and tried to replace experienced, trained editorial writers and columnists with a blogger named Ben Domenech. Charges of racism and plagiarism immediately ensued.”
Well, I don’t think that argument flies — at least, the “experienced, trained” Nick Confessore embarrassed the New York Times this week, too. And it’s not like we haven’t seen plagiarism from “experienced, trained” journalists. More on the confluence of these two stories here.
And the last word — in this already-too-long post, anyway — goes to Patrick Hynes, who says it’s a story about the superiority of the new media over the old:
Interestingly, it was Ben Domenech’s writing in the Old Media that got him in trouble, not his blogging. So I will vociferously defend bloggers as a race when the Oldies say “Blogger was a plagiarist” and “Blogs have no credibility,” which is inevitable. . . .
This is, if you think about it, a story about the corruptibility of the Old Media anyway. Like I said before, blogging is about sincerity and authenticity – two things foreign to the Old Media. And attempts by the Old Media to fake sincerity and authenticity will fall flat. Every time.
Yes, those experienced, trained editors and fact-checkers missed the plagiarism that blog-readers caught.
OKAY, NOW THIS IS THE LAST WORD: Ben Domenech has posted a response to his critics.