"Josh Marshall Is One of the Sharpest, Most Deadly Bloggers Around" - UK Guardian Covers MoDo Plagiarism Scandal
The MoDo plagiarism scandal has hit the international news circuit today. The UK Guardian has a great little piece up on it, include some great props for our dear old TPM:
It is an axiom of the new digital media age that high-profile political columnists should generally avoid copying other people's words without attribution. Nobody wants to have the p-word hung around their necks.
It is a further axiom of the age that if a columnist is to borrow a paragraph unattributed, then at least they should ensure it doesn't belong to Josh Marshall. The man behind Talking Points Memo is one of the sharpest, most deadly bloggers around.
*****
Marshall has an enviable track record of investigative reporting.
Through the New York-based Talking Points Memo, or TPM to its many fans, he broke the story of the Bush administration's politicised sacking of federal lawyers in 2007; his Muckraker blog is a scourge of corrupt politicians.
Unfortunately, the Guardian gives no credit to the person who actually broke the story, TPM reader "thejoshuablog". Still, it's great to see TPM getting some good publicity in the international press.
Kos (of Daily Kos) has now weighed in on the subject. Following his analysis of the statements, and the New York Times flaccid response, he even manages to stick in a little barb at Josh:
http://www.dailykos.com/
Do I smell a challenge to action here, Kos?
May 18, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Something doesn't add up.
Is Dowd so dense that she thought no one would notice an entire paragraph, identical word for word and (almost) comma for comma?
Even a college freshman turning in a plagiarized term paper wouldn't be so stupid.
May 19, 2009 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The charge of hypocrisy is one of the most overused, but it's still not hard to feel that Dowd is asking for a benefit of the doubt that she would likely not extend to any other public figure.
When somebody does or says something stupid, columnists like her interpret these as deep and telling character flaws. When she makes a mistake, it is a matter of circumstance.
May 19, 2009 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
This story has legs. And it not going away.
May 19, 2009 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Somebody needs to start running a bunch of MoDo's columns through the Google.
May 19, 2009 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
We are so worried as a people that if we take down these stars we will have no stars left. Other stars will arise, they always do, and if we tear down the CEOs and their banks, other stars will rise. It may be that MoDo was once a star, but what has she done lately, by herself?!?
May 19, 2009 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
At first I though it was in good taste for Josh not to have brought the subject up her at TPM. But, on reflection, I am not so sure. If it had been a right wing blog site, would Josh be so accomodating? And there are days when MO comes close to being a right wing blog site. Seems to me that this should have gotten a lot more coverage from the left! Even if they do appreciate the reinforcement of the message! WWMD!
What Would Maureen Do?
May 19, 2009 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't been following this story and thus, my question may have been asked (and answered?), already, but --
Given Dowd's weak and/or unbelievable apologia ("i was talking to a friend of mine Friday"), isn't it more likely that the "friend" of hers is writing the first draft of her columns?
Who is that friend? Enquiring minds want to know.
May 19, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
My thoughts exactly.
May 19, 2009 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's probably the intern that gets paid nothing to do all of her research for her.
May 19, 2009 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
The question in my mind is did that friend suddenly become unemployed?
May 19, 2009 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
MoDo got caught. My guess is that there are any number of political writers around the country who read TPMs pages regularly looking for ideas they can run with. The verbatim nature of MoDo's mistake, (and I do believe it was a mistake), has no defense. I'm sure she would have rewritten the words to defray charges of plagiarism had she known they were plagiarized. That brings me back to Ellen's point above: Who is that friend?
May 19, 2009 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
True, she is not the only one...I here quotes nightly from TPM on several of the cable news channels. And not always lifted from Josh, sometimes repeated statements made by posters. But, I would hold Maureen to a higher standard, because she holds everyone else to a higher standard.
May 19, 2009 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink