Comments on: Jack Shafer Throws Maureen Dowd a Bone on Plagiarism

By: Mark Palko

Mark Palko — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:02:47 +0000

"Daddy, What's a Republican?" has been on the Shafer beat for a while and this inconsistency is completely consistent. Shafer has a history of going after some journalistic practice then having to explain why it was OK when his friend (David Corn, Michael Kelly, Dowd) did pretty much the exact same thing.

http://www.slate.com/id/2087591/

http://daddywhatsarepublican.blogspot.com/search/label/Jack%20Shafer

By: Craig Plumfagen

Craig Plumfagen — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:04:48 +0000

She lifted what her friend had said to her, and both of them got it verbatim except for the "we" and "Bush crowd" wording switch? Anyone who has played the parlor game of Telephone knows that it implausible. Every other word in place, twice removed, from two people who were sharing the thought, not the precise paragraph? Absolute lie. As usual, the cover-up is worse than the crime. If Dowd were a 50-year-old white male reporter whom the NYT saw as a drain on the bottom line, it would use this as an excuse to throw him under the bus. They should be as trusted in their coverage as they are in their transparent handling of obvious ethical breaches by their newsroom pets -- in other words, not at all. At least the New York Post doesn't pretend to be more than the sleaze sheet that it is.

By: edward

edward — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:37:11 +0000

Dowd needs to be held to the same standards she held Joe Biden to. Remember it was Dowd who beat Biden down for plagiarizing a speech, very costly for the politician but hardly unusual. What is good for the gander is good for the goose. Also we need to know more about the behind-the-scenes group that writes or contributes to Dowd's columns. This is not the first time I have heard there is a committee that writes these columns. There was a New York Times reporter relieved of his duties for doing this.

By: rembrant

rembrant — Tue, 19 May 2009 12:53:44 +0000

u r stoopit

By: Victoria

Victoria — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:55:47 +0000

Her explanation is NOT plausible. She needs to produce either the email or the handwritten notes from her phone conversation with her friend. My guess is she swiped the paragraph herself and did the thing that plagiarists ALWAYS do- change just a couple of words, thinking that absolves them - and then tried to pass them off as her own.

I am willing to bet this is not the first time she's plagiarized. I hope some enterprising bloggers out there are combing through her columns now as I write this, looking for examples of plagiarism.