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February 29, 2008 12:16 PM PST
His name is Timothy Goeglein, and, as Paul Kiel at Talking Points Memo points out, it is quite ironic that Google should be the cause of his professional demise. Goeglein is a White House aide and, until today, wrote as a columnist for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel. He was outed for plagiarism this morning when Nancy Nall, a former employee at the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, posted a blog entry detailing an innocent Google search she conducted on one of Goeglein's subjects. The search revealed that his latest column was almost completely lifted from another source (Jeffrey Hart, in this case, in an article for the Dartmouth review). Since Nall's original posting, her readers and other bloggers have identified multiple instances of plagiarism. Timothy Goeglein has also fessed up. He told the Journal Gazette, "It is true. I am entirely at fault. It was wrong of me. There are no excuses." The News-Sentinel has announced that Goeglein will no longer be writing for the paper and will look into just how many of his columns may have been cribbed. It's unclear what the fate of his other job will be. Goeglein serves as a Special Assistant to the President and works in the White House's Office of Public Liason. In 2004, the New York Times published a profile on Goeglein's role in the White House. David D. Kirkpatrick suggested Goeglein is an extension of Karl Rove, "even Mr. Rove has his limits -- calls he cannot make, hands he cannot shake and meetings he cannot attend. For those, he has Timothy Goeglein." ... Read more
September 28, 2007 3:30 PM PDT
Do you remember the name Stephen Glass? How about Jayson Blair? Both men were hired as journalists at highly esteemed news publications but chose to write fiction instead of acting as reporters. After reading Steroids Confidential, this week's cover story in the SF Weekly, my first conclusion was that its authors, Nic Foit and Ira Tes, had secured themselves a place alongside Glass and Blair in the business of manufacturing the truth. As it turns out, the title belongs The SF Weekly itself and, as the SFist points out "Nic Foit and Ira Tes" is nothing more than an anagram for steroid fanatic.... Read more
August 15, 2007 10:20 PM PDT
Traditional journalism values objectivity above almost all other principles. Many contracts prohibit journalists from becoming active in politics and some reporters actually decline to vote in order to avoid undermining their objectivity. Sports columnist John Canzano at The Oregonian, however, has recently taken a job working for Paul Allen, the owner of the Trail Blazers. Can Canzano still be objective while simultaneously being employed by Allen's NewsRadio 750 KXL?... Read more
August 10, 2007 9:21 AM PDT
For anyone who's ever been quoted in a newspaper, you've likely read over the article with great anticipation only to conclude that the reporter completely missed the mark,
(Credit:
Google)
or at least neglected something you feel is important to your story. It's human nature. Unfortunately, there isn't much you or the news agency can do to clarify and remedy the miscommunication. Sure, newspapers can, and do, print corrections, but only when there is a factual error in the story, and they hardly rectify the situation. While not a perfect solution, the folks at Google News have recently begun soliciting comments from participants and subjects covered by the news report.... Read more
(Credit:
Google)
August 1, 2007 12:54 PM PDT
First it was Friendster, then it was MySpace; now Facebook seems to be the center of every other conversation on the Internet. Several of the writers at Poynter Online (a resource that puports to be "Everything you need to be a better journalist") have recently been focusing on the possibilities for Facebook in terms of the news business.
In one article Pat Walters reports on how he created the Facebook group, Journalists and Facebook as a sort of experiment.What better way to report on Facebook, than to use Facebook? We invited about 25 journalists to join the group, posted a few questions to the discussion board and waited. Seemed to make perfect sense. By the time we posted this story on Poynter Online, the group had mushroomed to more than 800 members, journalists and non-journalists from all over the world.At this moment there are almost 1,800 members, but only 57 wall posts, and 22 discussion threads. In his article, Walters points out that this limited participation in the group isn't unusual and he references an article by Jakob Nielsen to illustrate this phenomena. In his article, Nielsen predicts that only one percent of any given group will create most of the content, and after a cursory glance at the Journalists and Facebook group that estimate appears to be roughly on target.... Read more
July 26, 2007 3:21 PM PDT
Nearly three million people have watched on You Tube as Mika Brzezinski refuses to report on the Paris Hilton story; until yesterday I was not one of those people. I had heard about the encounter and rejoiced in her defiance, but I only stumbled onto the clip after reading Taking the Lead over at the Stop Big Media blog which is published through Free Press. Actually watching the event unfold went well beyond reading about it, and I was shocked to see the rest of the news team's reaction to her actions. Despite the way Joe Scarborough mocked his colleague for taking the initiative, Jack Cafferty at CNN's the Situation Room has followed suit. During a recent broadcast, Cafferty asked the operator of his teleprompter, "I wonder if we can get the Lindsay Lohan DUI arrest out of the teleprompter and put my script in it, is that possible?" Seconds later Cafferty concluded, "Apparently it's not."... Read more
July 12, 2007 1:49 PM PDT
July 3, 2007 2:48 PM PDT
With Bush's pardon commutation of Scooter Libby's 30 month prison sentence dominating the news this morning, the San Jose Mercury News published an article announcing 31 lay offs from their newsroom. This news, along with 15 recent volunteer resignations brings The Mercury's fleet of reporters down to 200 which according to the article is about half of what it was in 2000. Of course, this news shouldn't come as too much of a surprise as newspapers across the country have been feeling the heat for some time and many have resorted to lay offs in an effort to balance their declining budgets.
So why is it that print newspapers are faltering in recent years? Is it because of the rise of online journalists and bloggers or is it because American's have grown hypersensitive about paper waste and have decided it is no longer responsible to read a daily newspaper? Has Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth had that much of an impact? Somehow I doubt it.
... Read more
June 20, 2007 5:02 PM PDT
There's something kind of funny about a blog entry around a recent article in one outlet indicating that another newspaper is working on an expose about yet another media outlet, but that really is what this post is about. According to Michael Calderone at the New York Observer, "The New York Times is currently undertaking a major news investigation, led by managing editor Jill Abramson, into News Corp.'s business dealings throughout the world, according to a source with knowledge of the project."
Amidst the heavily hyped negotiations between Murdoch's minions and the Bancroft family who currently own the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times has apparently decided to mount their own investigation in an effort to examine what should be expected from the possible merger. While there is no clear indication what spin the Times will put on the story, it seems unlikely that the paper will conclude that Rupert Murdoch is the patron saint of news media. The New York times is one of the last major independent media outlets (along with the Wall Street Journal - for now), and it's altogether possible that News Corp. may eventually set it's sites on the Times, so I think it is safe to anticipate that this article won't be a puff piece.
... Read more
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