Romance Writer Loses Publisher Over Plagiarism

According to the Associated Press, Signet Books will no longer publish popular romance writer Cassie Edwards. It seems that Ms. Edwards had repeatedly taken descriptions, sentences, and sections from reference books and magazines without any form of attribution. The problem was first found by a romance lit blog with the great name Smart Bitches Love Trashy Books. Congratulations to them for unearthing the literary theft, and I'm shaking my head at either AP or the Boston Globe, which replaced Bitches with B------. J--z.

New York Times Again in Copycat Dog House

TheArgentinePost.com provides compelling evidence that a writer at the New York Times, when writing about expatriate artists in Buenos Aires, made overly liberal use of a research resource: a January 15, 2007 Newsweek story on the same topic. I won't even try to start covering the ground, as the analysis that the Argentine Post did is long, thorough, and, in addition, reported. Sadly, even though there was significant prior evidence of the writer purloining the work of others, the NYT travel editor eventually claimed that there "was no plagiarism at work." No, just some pretty amazing coincidences, one after the other.

Bush Aide Resigns After Admitting Plagiarism

An aide to President George W. Bush, "responsible for outreach to conservative and Christian groups," as the Washington Post noted, resigned after admitting that he had plagiarized the work of others in a newspaper column he wrote on a regular basis for his hometown newspaper, the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel. According to the story:

On its Web site Friday, the newspaper said 20 of 38 Goeglein columns between 2000 and 2008 contained "portions copied from other sources without attribution." News-Sentinel Editor Kerry Hubartt said Goeglein had written 80 or 90 columns for the newspaper in a relationship that began more than 20 years ago.

On its Web site Friday, the newspaper said 20 of 38 Goeglein columns between 2000 and 2008 contained "portions copied from other sources without attribution." News-Sentinel Editor Kerry Hubartt said Goeglein had written 80 or 90 columns for the newspaper in a relationship that began more than 20 years ago.

What was finally noticed by blogger Nancy Nall was material he had lifted from former Dartmouth professor Jeffrey L. Hart. What gave him away to Nall was mentioning a Dartmouth professor, Eugene Rosenstock-Hussey, in a column about education:

Now, I’m sure Tim’s spare brain space isn’t cluttered, as mine is, with “American Idol,” the internet and what’s-for-dinner concerns. Certainly string quartets waft through his paneled study, where he reads and thinks under the mounted ibex head, far from the vulgar buzz of pop culture. Surely he can acquaint himself with notable professors of philosophy at Dartmouth while I watch the Oscars. But this name was so goofy, just for the hell of it, I Googled it. And look what I found.

She shows the evidence. According to the Post story:

Peter Wehner, a former Bush aide, said Goeglein was regarded as "a person of sterling character" who was Bush's "eyes and ears" in the conservative world. "It is an important job, and he really developed a bond of trust with the conservative world," Wehner said.

Ah, there's the problem - he focused on family values, not professional ethics.

Times of London Keeps Radar Close - Too Close

New York Magazine has an interesting piece about the ... mmm ... similarities - yes, exactly, similarities - between a September Radar articled called 100 Reasons Why You're Still Single, and a similar-sounding one - 50 Reasons Why You're Still Single - that the Times of London ran last weekend. New York compares many elements of the list, version by version. Surprise! There are similarities! (If there weren't, I suspect the New York take wouldn't have taken.)

But the entire affair has left me with two questions. One, why did the Times only have 50 reasons? Maybe it figured those were reasons enough. The second question: Why did the Times wait so long to run its version? Answer: it takes a long time for the print copy of Radar to arrive in their offices.