Maureen Dowd accused of plagiarism

[Old Hank]

A reader of the progressive blog "Talkingpointsmemo" accuses Maureen Dowd of the New York Times of plagiarizing words originally written by TPM founder Joshuah Marshall. Link here: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/thejoshuablog/2009/05/ny-times-maureen-dowd-plagiari.php

Dowd wrote the following paragraph on Saturday:

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

Marshall had written the following paragraph on Thursday:

""More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

As the reader notes, All Dowd did was change "we were" to "the Bush crowd was".

The TPM reader also notes Dowd's hypocrisy, reflected by the fact that she voiced outrage about Joe Biden's plagiarism case 20 years ago, as noted in the following link: http://www.slate.com/id/2198543/

[dorkulon]

1. Wow, that's pretty serious.

I don't see how she can deny it either. But then again Mike Barnicle still has a job.

[marmar]

2. Wow......

Low blow, MoDo.

[FarLeftRage]

3. Ha ha ha!

Wait 'til Bartcop gets wind of this... he'll rip ol' pasty thighs a new one!!

[Patsy Stone]

4. Oh, my...

That's bad, Maureen.

[DemBones DemBones]

5. Pretty blatant. Maybe MoDo will

soon have to look for honest work.

[BlooInBloo]

6. Irony alert: The newspapers bitching about people linking to them.

[Kerrytravelers]

7. I have no idea, clearly, the whole story, but it doesn't seem like a real original thought in that

the same idea has been expressed a bit lately. It could be that she was already thinking this and had the idea down, had read the RPM piece, and when reworking/editing her writing, this flowed, but not necessarily from plagiarism, but just from the subconscious. I, myself, have said things that I later realized were influenced by something I'd read or heard. I didn't intend to "steal," it just came out and later I realized "OH! I heard that from XYZ."

[RandomThoughts]

11. I sorta agree with you. I have even said things I hadn't read

Then later realized someone else said the same things. I have noticed many times I say things really close to other people without knowing of it, and many people say things really close to what I say.

Its a common thought by many, and being only one sentence, it might be subconscious.

Or if you want a thrill maybe its the Dr. Who Episode "midnight" at work (just joking, that episode is mostly flipped, but does show how people panic, so it is good and bad, and I don't think that is it.)

I find myself repeating many things other people said, and I see it in stories all the time, but sometimes its just because they are things everyone knows, some inherent part of humanity.

[Orrex]

15. I think you plagiarized this post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5673688&mesg_id=5673751

[RandomThoughts]

12. I sorta agree with you. I have even said things I hadn't read

Then later realized someone else said the same things. I have noticed many times I say things really close to other people without knowing of it, and many people say things really close to what I say.

Its a common thought by many, and being only one sentence, it might be subconscious.

Or if you want a thrill maybe its the Dr. Who Episode "midnight" at work (just joking, that episode is mostly flipped, but does show how people panic, so it is good and bad, and I don't think that is it.)

I find myself repeating many things other people said, and I see it in stories all the time, but sometimes its just because they are things everyone knows, some inherent part of humanity.

[Orrex]

14. I think you plagiarized this post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5673688#5673746

[RandomThoughts]

18. LOL Good one,

Could you source the original. :)

Thinking.............

yup, I did sorta plagiarize an interview with Tim Robins, where he said stories say the same thing over and over in stories. His quote from memory goes something like, it is revealing some common thought of humanity.

Also idea of a philosopher that said something about all stories being the same story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_mythology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces Although I might disagree with some of his conclusions. I don't think the commonality is because of same thoughts, I think it is because people do get called. So it is not a creation of mind, but an experiance of soul.

Which leads back to one of the biggest questions.
Author Neil Gaiman, whose work is frequently seen as exemplifying the monomyth structure,<12> says that he started The Hero with a Thousand Faces but refused to finish it: "I think I got about half way through The Hero with a Thousand Faces and found myself thinking if this is true — I don’t want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I’d rather do it because it’s true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is."

Which may be why I do not accept that the stories are the same, but that people think the same. They are not telling the same story, they are telling their story which is the same as many other people. They are still free will individuals, and this idea can be a trap that spins back to controlled, not free will. It is one of the big traps. But even when things collide, it does not mean the story was not the individuals, it only means parts showed the same elements and themes as others, and parts that did not distract from the intent of the author might also have another layer of corrilation, adding something on top of the story, not taking from the original story.

I actually think this is one of the biggest traps, the idea of puppet or show. And it is not true, and I know that because I do both stupid and smart things. And even though there are also added levels in things, I still choose what I do, as do other people, and I choose what I write, however at times added things might be included in many peoples works, it does not change the thought or intent to create the original work of that author. Does that make sense?


Also analysis of Star Wars that said it was made from the combination of many stories through many cultures.

But years ago, I found that out myself, I spent years looking at pop culture to try and understand 'Why' and found the collisions. Once I found them I noticed they were everywhere, later I found other people thought the same thing.

So it was same thought, not copied thought.

Note: I think there are two themes, not one, in stories. One good side one bad. Think violent or horror scary shows, versus inspirational ones.

Edit: I also do not think Correlation always indicates causation. There is no way to know if they got the idea from me, I got the idea from them, or we both had the same idea.

[RandomThoughts]

49. Notice the quote says

"If it is true." Looking at it for years, and testing many elements of it, I have found it is not true that it is the same story, nor is it not the persons telling of the story. But I also know some added layers can get put in. Not controlling the original story, but adding to the entire story of the cumulative stories.

I am trying to make my opinion clear, because if you believe it is all puppet or show, it is sad. And it is not puppet or show, but layers. While each individual does create unique items reflective of their choices and beliefs. Choices and beliefs that matter, also things get added in based on the larger collective connection of those choices or beliefs. Again making the sourcing of the added layers, dependant in part on the beliefs of the original person writing the work. Almost as if the added layer comes through as an extension of something else, but also an extension of them, since their belief or choices modifies the addition or determines the source.

Edit: Rereading the thread, I really went off on a tangent. A bit more then the original OP. Its not really related to the idea of the original OP.

[RandomThoughts]

22. Moderator Interaction (edit for metaphor reason)!!

Someone doubled up our posts

Using the alert button

:)

(someone double posted my post and Orrex's post, if you don't get the context. It was done by moderator modification.)

Which could be a metaphor for the entire topic :)

[Kerrytravelers]

74. Moderator's don't have the ability to modify posts. However, you may have encountered a bug.

I'll let the correct admin know.

:hi:
kt

[liberalhistorian]

68. Yes, but the problem is that the wording, with one exception, is

exactly the same-hardly indicative of just having similar thoughts. I wouldn't put this past her at all-she's arrogant enough to think that she can get away with it 'cause she's the hot-shit Pulitzer-winning nationally-known mucky-muck and TPM is just a leftist blog.

[EFerrari]

8. This isn't the first time as I recall. Does anyone else remember that? nt

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

9. The phrasing and syntax are actually kind of weird, so there's no

question Maureen lifted it without attribution. Her best case would be to say that she was in fact quoting Josh Marshall and somehow the attribution was left out. Which I wouldn't believe. Maureen Dowd is a columnist and columnists rarely if ever quote each other. Their stock in trade is their "UNIQUE" perspective. So, mean girl Maureen is caught fairly red-handed.

[Patsy Stone]

10. The only other thing I can think of

is that she cut and pasted it, intending to "make it her own" (read: plagiarize) and forgot to re-write it. Oops.

ed: sp.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

13. I think that is the most likely scenario. She had that fifth glass of wine

fell asleep on her keyboard, woke up late and had to hit "send".

[Patsy Stone]

27. Apparently

she chose to blame it on a friend. :eyes:

[MilesColtrane]

62. Was that friend Ernest, or Julio Gallo?

[Patsy Stone]

67. :)

And what of that wonky excuse? Now, instead of attributing it to a friend, it seems the NYT just decided to go with the "forgot to attribute it to JMM" explanation.

What a mess this is.

[liberalhistorian]

69. If she weren't a hot-shit pulitzer-winning nationally-known

mucky-muck big-shot columnist, you'd better believe they'd have thrown her ass under the bus, where it actually belongs. As a writer, there are few things I detest more than plagiarism. There is just NEVER any excuse for it, ever, especially in cases where a well-known bigshot steals from an unknown or much lesser-known.

[glitch]

17. Implies she may do this fairly often. Often enough to forget to do the re-write, at any rate.

She should be embarrassed, we'll see if she's adult enough to apologize.

[struggle4progress]

41. Well, the NYT has now added EXACTLY that disclaimer to her column

... Josh Marshall said in his blog: “More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq” ...
An earlier version of this column failed to attribute a paragraph about the timeline for prisoner abuse to Josh Marshall’s blog at Talking Points Memo http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17dowd.html?_r=2

[BlooInBloo]

16. Dowd ADMITS the plagiarism...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/17/maureen-dowd-admits-inadv_n_204418.html

[babylonsister]

19. She's blaming it on a friend. How very lame. nt

[elizfeelinggreat]

36. +1

A "friend" indeed.

[Jakes Progress]

53. Blame lies elsewhere. How bush of her. nt

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

20. She didn't read the blog and she didn't have any idea he had expressed that idea?

except that she quoted it almost exactly word for word based on a phone conversation with a friend? Strains credulity if you ask me. Was the friend reading from Marshalls blog without saying so? Most people absorb an idea from a blog, not THE EXACT WORDING. And like I posted above, even the wording and syntax is a little peculiar, doesn't fit in with MoDo's usual style.

I go with Patsy Stone's theory of the cut and paste that wasn't rephrased.

[Stephanie]

40. Her friend probably included the line in an email and she used it

I don't have any problem with her story.

[Orsino]

79. So she plagiarized her friend, rather than Marshall? n/t

[Spazito]

21. I am glad she is acknowledging it but I am NOT buying her excuse...

"i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column."

"Weave the idea into my column"???? I don't think so. There was NO weaving done, she simply stole Marshall's work and got caught.

Pretty pathetic.

[BlooInBloo]

24. Well duh - she's flat-out lying.

[Spazito]

28. Yep, plagiarists ARE liars by 'profession' n/t

[nichomachus]

39. Why in the world would she "steal" this

It's not deathless prose. It's not anything any of us couldn't say and probably haven't said. It's fairly mundane idea expressed in even more mundane language. Why would anyone waste the time to copy it word for word, when you just just slam it out in your own words in half the time.

Christ on a Pogo Stick! You'd think she had cribbed the fucking Gettysburg Address.

Talk about a tempest in a teapot.

[Spazito]

46. Are there 'degrees' of plagiarism? It is OR is not plagiarism...

"Why would anyone waste the time to copy it word for word, when you just just slam it out in your own words in half the time."

Indeed, why did she? Laziness, arrogance, incompetence?

It is not the quality of the product stolen that determines whether there was theft, theft is theft, or, in this case, plagiarism, that is in discussion and she brazenly stole someone else's words and claimed them as her own.

[Stephanie]

58. If I suggest a line to a writer friend and he uses it, that's not plagiarism.That's a contribution.

If I suggest someone else's line and don't mention where it came from, that's an error. Honestly this is much ado over nothing.

[Spazito]

61. I disagree...

Maureen Dowd earns her paycheck by producing 'lines', original lines. Instead, except for the deliberate, very interesting 'little' change, substituting "the Bush crowd" for "we were", the sentence structure, every word was Josh Marshalls. She sold Josh Marshall's work as her own.

You are accepting of her excuse for the 'error', I do not. I found her explanation unbelievable.

She certainly knows the seriousness of plagiarism, she wrote about it and the seriousness of it.

[Stephanie]

63. If her friend looked over her piece and said, I think you need to say this here.

And if the friend emailed her his suggestion, the quote, and did not attribute Marshall, it's easy to see how it would happen. I suggest ideas to writers all the time. They don't dream everything up in a vacuum. They write, they think, they talk to people, they get feedback. The friend says, you should talk about this, and quotes Marshall without noting the source, and she uses his suggestion. The only unusual thing here is that the friend's suggestion happened to be a direct quote. How was she to know that?

[Spazito]

64. Look at her 'explanation'

"i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column."

"I wanted to weave the idea..."

There was NO weaving, no "idea", it was a complete cut and paste job. It is HER responsibility to ensure her column consists of her material, original material. Blaming it on a nameless friend is pathetic and has caused this to go from a crappy pothole to a hole deep enough she needs to stop digging, imo.

Somewhat of an aside but I think, even if her 'explanation' is remotely true, stealing it from her friend 'word for word' and using it as her own does not serve her well either.

[Stephanie]

66. If a friend offered suggestions it's not stealing. The only problem is what he offered was not his.

Obviously she didn't know that. But really, writers borrow stuff all the time from people who offer their ideas. Some writers get TOO many ideas thrown at them all the time to the point they're sick of it.

[Spazito]

70. Again, it wasn't just an 'idea'....

An idea might be something like "Why don't you add something about the timing of the torture coinciding with the search for political justification for the invasion of Iraq", that's suggesting an idea. You then take that idea, extrapolate from it what you, repeat YOU, want to say about it.

Instead, her 'friend' read or wrote the sentence and she, in turn, quoted it as her own without asking if she could use it. How do I know she didn't ask the friend if she could use it? Had she asked the friend if she could use it, the friend would have, no doubt, informed her it was not their's to give.

You keep saying it was an 'idea', a 'suggestion' yet it was much more than either of those, imo.

[Stephanie]

71. You don't know what the relationship with the friend was.

Some people have ongoing, collaborative relationships where it's not necessary to ask. I don't understand villainizing her over this. It's nonsense.

[BlooInBloo]

47. Because those words are all the writer has, fool.

[nichomachus]

75. More nonsense has been written about this non-story

God, what a waste of time and effort

"Woe unto him who calls his brother a fool, for he shall be liable to hell fire" (just sayin')

[Orsino]

78. Because she is desperate to fill inches with as little work as possible.

She always takes the easy way out.

That she excuses her plagiarism of Marshall by saying she meant to plagiarize her nameless "friend" is ludicrous.

[Cha]

25. +1 for Josh Marshall!

Things can happen. I don't always like MoDo but I think she's smarter than to blatantly plagiarize in this era of information highway.

[BlooInBloo]

26. As Atrios just tweeted....

http://twitter.com/Atrios/status/1830299359

"MoDo's friend memorizes a paragraph from JMM, repeats it to MoDo w/out credit word-for-word, MoDo takes it down word-for-word. Right-o."


EDIT: I came in late to this twitter-convo. Atrios was sarcastically repeating what Hampsher tweeted.

[Patsy Stone]

29. And never asks the friend if it was an original idea or it she can use it.

Sucky excuse either way, MoDo.

[Cha]

31. Yeah, I thought about that later..

Darn, she should have come up with a better one OR not plagiarize:think:

Stupid.

[BlooInBloo]

34. hahahaah! Jane Hampsher's answering tweet...

"More likely: 1) MoDo gets liquored up, writes column in blackout or 2) passes out & embittered assistant stuck w/deadline takes revenge."

http://twitter.com/janehamsher/status/1830464817


EDIT: Hey MoDo! THIS is an example of proper citation, fool.

[Cha]

38. Ouch! Mo's got a

big hangover headache.

[Cha]

43. Talk about IRONY..

"Back in 1987, Dowd herself is the one who exposed then-presidential candidate Joe Biden's plagiarism of British politician Neil Kinnock's speeches."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/17/maureen-dowd-admits-inadv_n_204418.html

[Tangerine LaBamba]

30. What horseshit........

The sentence is verbatim, except for a very deliberate change, one very deliberate change, and she claims it came from "a friend"?

I blow hot and cold on Dowd, but this kind of cheating, after what she's done to Joe Biden, leaves me cold. She's just another fraud, peddling the ideas of others as her own.

Waste....................

[cherokeeprogressive]

35. "in an email to Huffington Post" This is a strange world indeed...

"Maureen Dowd has sent the NYTPicker this comment on today's accusation of plagiarism:"

"josh is right. I didn't read his blog last week, and didn't have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now. i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about that I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column. but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me. we're fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow."

[JackRiddler]

23. Excuse me if I don't get too excited about this.

One sentence of expository prose stating an obvious and correct point in an editorial isn't much of a "plagiarism" scandal. It should be pointed out of course. Don't miss any chance to expose Dowd as the lightweight she is. When did she ever have anything original to say?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

32. Yes, it is.

One sentence out of a very short piece is a lot. And it's stolen. And that's serious.

Maybe you don't take plagiarism very seriously, but I do.................

[nichomachus]

37. Self-deleted

Self-deleted

[Goblinmonger]

65. Plagiarism is plagiarism is plagiarism

Professional writers, of all people, should NOT get a pass on this. Not for any reason.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[nichomachus]

42. Breaking: Hatred of MoDo blows non-story out of proportion

I'm no fan of MoDo, but this is the stupidest controversy I've seen in a long time.

A common sense thought expressed in rather mundane language is repeated --perhaps by accodent -- and everyone treats it as if she had copied Shakespeare's sonnets and tried to pass them off as her own.

Jesus, folks, grab a paper bag, breath into it for about five minutes. Then, go for a walk.

[Enrique]

45. i think it's a big deal in the profession

Dowd could get fired if I understand journalistic standards correctly.

[nichomachus]

76. Well, as someone who worked in "the profession" all his life

I think it's stupid

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

50. Except that MoDo is paid for ORIGINAL writing.

That is her actual profession. I doubt if there is any group of people who care more about sourcing and attribution than writers, editors, journalists and columnists. This is a blow to her credibility and reputation.

[nichomachus]

77. Except

There is nothing remarkable about what she allegedly used. It's not an original idea and the language is kind of pedestrian.

It's not like she copied some brilliant passage.

I write a lot. I read a lot. I listen a lot. When I sit down to write, ideas pop into my head and I write them down. I would be surprised if at some time or another I wrote something down, thinking I had just thought it up when it was something I heard or read a week before -- especially if it's not a particularly original thought expressed in breathtaking language.

As someone who was a writer and who trained writers -- and was always on the lookout for plagiarism -- I think this is a stupid controversy blown way out of proportion.

[Stephanie]

59. Agreed.

It's ridiculous.

[Enrique]

44. so her friend has photographic memory

and so does Dowd.

Works for me. :shrug:

[AngryAmish]

48. She has been playing Bush's rustry trombone so long she does not know what truth is

May she roast in hell.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

51. I haven't paid any attention to MoDo since she was so spiteful and petty towards Al Gore

and helped put Bush in the White House.

This link is a pretty interesting read about how she wrote a column and created a "Giftgate" scandal for Hillary Clinton pretty much out of whole cloth. It doesn't indicate a whle lot of concern for the facts.

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020216Baker.html

[tularetom]

52. If you looked hard enough you'd find that she probably plagiarized her alibi as well

I doubt she has had an original thought in her booze addled skull for years.

[johnfunk]

54. Maybr I should title my new book "Is Dowd Necessary"?

:rofl:

[ErinBerin84]

55. pretty funny

given her role in the Biden debacle. Oh yeah, on another note, she is Mike Barnicle's neighbor in Georgetown. Seriously.

[TexasObserver]

56. In her defense, she was probably falling down drunk at the time.

She always looks and acts like a drunk and a pill head, whenever she appears on any TV show.

[DemReadingDU]

57. Both names are in the news

discussing the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.
__________________


Plagiarism? maybe. But it's also getting more people to hear that Bush illegally went to war in Iraq by torturing people.

[FlyingSquirrel]

72. I was just gonna say the same thing

(Good thing I read your post first so I won't be accused of plagiarism!)

:P

[mitchum]

60. Dorothy Pucker is a thieving fucker

[Uzybone]

73. when was her last original column?

Dowd has been a waste of space for many years.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

80. She ADMITTED she ACCIDENTALLY BORROWED it from a FRIEND & DIDNT steal it from MARSHALL

as far as she knew or recalled in the heat of the moment! What more honesty could you possibly squeeze out of her?? You can't call something plagiarism if it was an accident and a misunderstanding and was from a friend anyway, and you cant make it into a big thing if the person gives as completely honest an explanation as she can give under the circumstances, considering everything involved. :*