Patent Law

Plagiarism at the New York Press

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

In a note to readers in its current issue, the New York City alt-paper said columnist Claudia Lonow, whom it identified as "a television writer based in Los Angeles who had not previously written for a newspaper," plagiarized the questions for the first column because she had no reader questions.

"It had been our understanding that the questions for her first column came from friends," the newspaper said. "She has told us she was unaware that using questions from Savage's column was a breach of journalism ethics. She has offered her resignation, and we've accepted it. We apologize to our readers, and to Dan Savage, for this error in judgment."

IPBiz notes that the Poshard-popularized concept of inadvertent plagiarism arises. A Seattle blog noted:

Savage got an e-mail Thursday morning from the Press's former advice columnist apologizing for Claudia Lonow's actions, he said. The paper's editor-in-chief apologized publicly on the Press's Web site.

"I don't think she did this on purpose," Savage wrote in an e-mail Thursday. "The borrowing was an accident, not malicious, and doesn't rise to the level of plagiarism, in my opinion. She could've avoided this ... if she'd said, 'I don't have any letters yet, so here are some I swiped from 'Savage Love.'' And I would've given her my permission to use 'em."

Full post as published by IPBiz on January 26, 2008 (boomark / email).