I plagiarallegiance to the flag..

Friday, while working on a page for Sunday, I came across a columnist that took credit for an internet list that was not his.

Saturday, my managing editor told his boss about it.

Sunday, the editor in chief looked up the internet list on his own, and e-mailed the guy in what can only be described as a near-confrontational tone (if capitulatory is near-confrontational).

Monday, he wrote back, denying everything, in essence becoming a liar and a thief.
Monday night, my boss’s boss came up to me and told me that I had done good work in catching him, but as the columnist in question was a 75-year-old retired journalist who had worked for UPI and the Dever Post and had been a weekly columnist for us for 12 years, he wouldn’t be fired.

The man steals entire works, then gets away with it with not even a slap on the wrist. Can you believe that?

I wish I could say I didn’t, but I do. Furthermore, I’m actually glad things turned out how they did.

Sure, this guy is getting paid to write crappy columns supplemented with worthwhile stolen humor, but he’s been doing it for 12 years! I wrote a weekly column for 6 months and I was out of ideas by the sixth week!

Writing is hard when there’s a deadline and you have no direction but ‘be funny.’

Furthermore, this internet list is as close to authorless as you can get. I guarantee nobody wrote more than six items on the list. It’s the type of thing that grows as it’s passed along. And besides: who’s going to take credit for it?

So this man stole material from nobody to entertain everybody and cash in a miserly $15 check. Furthermore, though he’s done this before, he’s likely written some 50 percent of the material he’s credited for, so it’s not like he’s a complete hack (in comedy yes, but that’s a different standard). Plus, he just got embarrassed by a twenty-one year old in front of his peers. He did the biggest journalistic no-no and was caught at it.

I’m sure he won’t be stealing any lists again any time soon.

Soon is hereby defined as the next six months.

Friday, while working on a page for Sunday, I came across a columnist that took credit for an internet list that was not his. Saturday, my managing editor told his boss about it. Sunday, the editor in chief looked up the internet list on his own, and e-mailed the guy in what can only be…