The BDH’s modus operandi is sort of up in the air these days: what’s a newspaper to do when it discovers that three plagiarists in the last three months have infested its pages? On Friday a veritable scandal erupted, as two “student journalists” stand accused of stealing sources and ideas from the Yale Daily News and the Harvard Crimson. And for what? The glory?

From Friday’s BDH:

Last week, as part of its usual fact-checking process, The Herald discovered that two news articles scheduled for publication contained material taken from other sources’ reporting without quotation or attribution. The articles were never printed. The Herald began a thorough review of the writers’ published work, as it does whenever inauthentic content is found.

During that review, two published articles were found that contained passages similar or identical to those in other publications. “Common App now has rival in Universal App,” (Sept. 26, 2007) contains text similar or identical to writing in an article in the Yale Daily News (“Common App faces new online rival,” Sept. 7, 2007). The article also contains information from an interview not attributed to the News’ reporting.

“James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA structure, resigns after racist remarks,” (Oct. 31, 2007) contained quotations not attributed to reporting for an article in the Harvard Crimson (“Watson Apologizes Amid Uproar Over His Comments on Race,” Oct. 19, 2007).”

This follows up on Zac Townsend’s winning BDH plagiarist-of-the-year award in November. And this scandal from 2006. Which leads us to the million dollar question: what exactly is the BDH’s “usual fact-checking process”? And why don’t these students-plagiarists take the truly easy way out: never volunteering to write for their college dailies to begin with?

After the jump: the not-so-startling similarities between the articles. Read the rest of this entry »

As it turns out, Brown’s newest plagiarist-in-chief is the selfsame Zac Townsend from the excellent documentary about last year’s race for Brown UC president. His best line from the film, in between all the politicking and snickering and posturing: “I am Zac Townsend, and I am not an asshole.”

Zac claims at one point in the documentary that his first love was journalism – not politics – and that had he gone to Harvard (which, he adds, he was admitted to) he would have wanted to be an editor at the Crimson. For the sake of Original Work, let’s just say it’s a good thing that Zac went to Brown and was only a columnist for the apparently less prestigious Herald.

The prematurely balding Zac is a member of the UC and participates in a zillion other extra-curricular clubs and activities. Unfortunately, he’s taken his website down – looks like this is a bit too much publicity even for him – so we’re unable to give you the full play-by-play. Suffice to say his “About Me” section was over a page of resume-bragging.

Zac even plagiarized a Letter-to-the-Editor he submitted to the New York Times. Writing to the Times about  sex trafficking – his exceedingly strange and somewhat creepy pet cause – Zac copies at least one sentence verbatim from Foreign Affairs (you have to google the sentence; alas, IvyGate isn’t a Foreign Affairs subscriber).

After the jump: the sentence that sneaked past the NYT plagiarism censors.

Read the rest of this entry »