New York Times Defends Maureen Dowd on Plagiarism Charge
Tommy Christopher
Contributor
Posted:
05/18/09
As David Knowles wrote earlier, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is under fire for a passage in her op-ed piece that is a near-identical copy of one from TPM's Josh Marshall.
Now, Politico reports that the New York Times has issued them a statement defending Dowd:
Interestingly, DailyKos' Markos Moulitsas decries Dowd "skating" on this, while simultaneously condemning distractions from the story of Cheney ordering torture to establish an Iraq-9/11 link, which was the subject of Dowd's piece.
The arc of the Dowd story seems to be lifted directly from the arc of the current Pelosi brouhaha. Someone makes a devastating point about the use of torture, and that messenger is dissected. Like Pelosi, Dowd is being accused of digging herself in deeper with an imprecise initial explanation. Dowd says she was "talking" with a friend, when maybe she meant "emailing," or Instant Messaging, and now she is the issue.
Dowd admitted her mistake, her explanation makes sense if it was in an email, and she corrected it. The passage in question is unremarkable, the kind of thing I would credit if it were a published work, but which would be awkward to credit otherwise. Like, "I was talking to a friend of mine named Stacey who told me that the timeline..."
Now, if my friend Stacey wrote a poem about Cheney, I'd be more likely to credit her.
In any case, this is another wonderful distraction from the true nature of the new revelations about torture. As Markos Moulitsas (not my friend Stacey) puts it:
Now, Politico reports that the New York Times has issued them a statement defending Dowd:
...I put the question of whether this is common practice for columnists before Times editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal, who passed me along to PR. But now I've now received a statement supporting Dowd from spokesperson Diane McNulty.Maureen had us correct the column online as soon as the error was brought to her attention, adding in the sourcing to Marshall's blog. We ran a correction in today's paper, referring readers to the correct version online.
There is no need to do anything further since there is no allegation, hint or anything else from Marshall that this was anything but an error. It was corrected. 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.
Interestingly, DailyKos' Markos Moulitsas decries Dowd "skating" on this, while simultaneously condemning distractions from the story of Cheney ordering torture to establish an Iraq-9/11 link, which was the subject of Dowd's piece.
The arc of the Dowd story seems to be lifted directly from the arc of the current Pelosi brouhaha. Someone makes a devastating point about the use of torture, and that messenger is dissected. Like Pelosi, Dowd is being accused of digging herself in deeper with an imprecise initial explanation. Dowd says she was "talking" with a friend, when maybe she meant "emailing," or Instant Messaging, and now she is the issue.
Dowd admitted her mistake, her explanation makes sense if it was in an email, and she corrected it. The passage in question is unremarkable, the kind of thing I would credit if it were a published work, but which would be awkward to credit otherwise. Like, "I was talking to a friend of mine named Stacey who told me that the timeline..."
Now, if my friend Stacey wrote a poem about Cheney, I'd be more likely to credit her.
In any case, this is another wonderful distraction from the true nature of the new revelations about torture. As Markos Moulitsas (not my friend Stacey) puts it:
Maybe @jaketapper can explain why DC media doesn't care that Cheney tortured to try & tie Iraq to AQ. But ... Pelosi! http://bit.ly/ZMtIoAnd, I would add, "But...Dowd!"
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