Wow, that's about as shameless as I've seen. I tried to mention it in the Salem-News.com comments section, but it hasn't been "approved." Likely will never be.

Oh my goddess, Boyd. You didn't say if you saw the profile on Dorsett Bennett, but here it is anyway, complete with email address.

Dorsett Bennett is a disabled and recently retired lawyer who moved to Salem in October 2008. Politically and historically aware since age 12, he was a moderate to liberal Republican from 1971 until 2004, and now considers himself an Independent/Libertarian. To quote the iconic cartoon character Charlie Brown, "Good Grief." Bennett says he is self-aware enough to admit that he has beliefs and/or positions that can be considered to be either liberal or conservative. Bennett's E-mail: dcbennettii@yahoo.com

Salem-News.com Intellectual Property Notice

Salem-News.com respects the intellectual property of others, and Salem-News.com asks our users to do the same. If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or your intellectual property rights have been otherwise violated, please provide Salem-News.com's Copyright Agent the following information (the "Notice"):

(i) an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright or other intellectual property interest;

(ii) a description of the copyrighted work or other intellectual property that you claim has been infringed;

(iii) a description of where the material that you claim has been infringed is located on the Salem-News.com Website;

(iv) your address, telephone number and email address;

(v) a statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law; and (vi) a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the information in your Notice is accurate and that you are the copyright or intellectual property owner or authorized to act on the copyright or intellectual property owner's behalf.

Salem-News.com's Agent for Notice of claims of copyright or other intellectual property infringement can be reached at:

Salem-News.com, Inc.
P.O. Box 5238
Salem, Oregon 97304
Attn: Salem-News.com Corporate Counsel

I don't know how you want to handle this, or if you want to handle it at all, but there is the info if you want it.

I don't know why I feel so shocked, but damn, that was word for word for word. And I'm still shocked. And, that was one of my favorite blogs, to boot.

There were many times last Fall when MoDo's columns seemed to "echo" my blogs on Sarah Palin. Not whole sentences, though I never did bother to check. But themes. I saw it a lot during the campaign. I used to wait for her columns specifically to see if once again she'd use my ideas. I saw it over and over. I haven't time to go back. She may just be collecting her salary and loafing any more.

Apparently Bennett has now added in small print below the last video block a message of "special thanks" to My TPM Blog. So there you go--all fixed! Of course, the text doesn't even include "update" in it anywhere, so it appears as if it's been part of the post forever.

Boyd,

This upset me enough I linked to your story in a comment under Glenn Greenwald's story on Maureen Dowd (under my alterego Liberal Artist).

Glenn thought your story worthy and relevant enough to add an update specifically about your case: (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/18/parasites/index.html)

Your story, like others, deserves to be told, as a warning to klepto-journos everywhere.

Also his article here: http://salem-news.com/articles/may062009/murtha_part1_db_5-6-09.php steals from this Washington post article : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/04/AR2009050403743.html?wprss=rss_nation

Here's another 4-part "article" from Bennett that is a hodge podge of stolen paragraphs from two or three sources including Wikipedia:

http://salem-news.com/articles/january232009/illegal_drugs-sb_1-22-09.php

Has anyone sent this man an email to introduce him to quotation marks?

I would like to remind everyone that the plagiarist is supposedly a lawyer.

I'm not sure that anything will happen to Dorsett Bennet since it appears that everything on the Salem-news.com website is plagiarized.....even the article not written by Bennett. Google the first sentence of any "article" they print and you will find it printed somewhere else first.

SLATE: "Dude, You Stole My Article: How I investigated a suspicious alt weekly."

By Jody Rosen
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008, at 4:00 PM ET

The saga began in the classical manner: with an e-mail about Jimmy Buffett. Several weeks ago, I received a note from a Slate reader drawing my attention to an article published in March 2008 in the Bulletin, a free alternative weekly in Montgomery County, Texas, north of Houston. "I believe your … profile of musician Jimmy Buffett was reproduced wholesale without attribution," the reader wrote. "I thought you should know." I followed a link to . . . . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2196810/pagenum/all/

As Atrios always says:

I think its time for another blogger ethics panel!

Journalists and their editors are quite often very pitiful at their jobs, criminally so it seems now. This must be tip of the iceberg, I bet there are thousands of cases like this (maybe not quite this egregious)

The top of their profession consists of such luminaries as the canadian MTV video Jockey on CNN John King, David Gregory (Karl Rove's backup dancer), Chris Mathews (Mr. codpiece), Maureen Dowd (nuff said), and Doris Kearns Goodwin who was caught plagiarizing (by my ~uncle Philip). Failing up is the name of the game here.

Corporate Journos' role models are the dregs of the cesspools of intellect

Boyd, this is a great post, thank you. And all that added comments and research - I applaud you. The MoDo bit really opened my eyes and I am so glad to see this follow up.

In the middle of the presidential campaigns I was contacted by a reporter from USA today that wanted to quote a comment I made here. She was very professional about the whole thing and really nice. All it took was a few emails back and forth. By the way, TPM made the original contact - they did not give the reporter my info. Just wanted you all to know that some papers appear to have some professionalism.

There are now "TPM Cafe said/wrote/reported" additions all over the "Bennett" article and a a 'special thanks' link to your original post at TPM Cafe. No indication though that the original version has been amended. But the cached version of the unattributed original Salem-News article (link posted above by tempsan at 8:07) is still working for all to see.

Hey Boyd - this blog is about to disappear which is too bad. Bennett's remedies to my mind just aren't good enough. Basic journalistic practice. Just sloppy and unethical that his piece hasn't been retracted/redone with proper permission and attribution. Pathetic. Something to keep a look out for. If there are any further developments republish with updates please!

And most importantly: YOU SHOULD BE BLOGGING MORE. We all miss your stuff!!

Good catch Boyd. There is no excuse for plagiarism. On the bright side our written words here obviously have an impact that goes well beyond the regular commenters here at TPM. Well done