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THE IRISH EXAMINER says it is investigating substantial allegations of plagiarism against one of its columnists.
Steven King, who writes about international affairs in a weekly column for the newspaper, is accused of copying lengthy passages for his columns from the output of Brendan O’Neill, the editor of British-based blog Spiked.
In a tweet this morning, the newspaper’s editor Tim Vaughan said the claims were a “very serious issue” and that the newspaper was awaiting a response from King to the allegation.
Evidence of the plagiarism was uncovered by journalist Brian Whelan, whose blog this morning published examples of seven King articles which seem to rely heavily on passages taken from O’Neill’s columns.
In one case – a column published by the Examiner in July – there are at least three paragraphs which bear striking similarities to an O’Neill column from 2008.
Whelan wrote on his blog that he had been in contact with O’Neill regarding the similarities, and had been assured that King was not given permission to use passages from his work.
DIT journalism lecturer Harry Browne subsequently uncovered further examples of potential plagiarism, in King’s column published yesterday.
That column – dealing with the prospect of Barack Obama losing next year’s US election – carries similarities with pieces published on Salon.com and in Commentary Magazine.
Whelan had previously helped to uncover accusations against London Independent columnist Johann Hari, which resulted in Hari being stripped of his 2008 Orwell Prize and suspended from duty at his paper.
Hari is now on unpaid leave from the Independent.
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There have been several posts off politics.ie that appear in Irish newspapers, almost verbatim, indeed one was read out in the Dáil.
Lets not forget that many many local and national papers that use posts made by boards.ie users as sources for stories and even partially quote stuff and never contrib it to the sources they’ve “borrowed” it from.
It says Irish Independent in the caption Gav.
Entirely mea culpa. Amended with apologies!
Itmight be because George Hook copied a paragraph from Wikipedia while this guy seems to have copied a far greater body if work. Both are examples of plagiarism, it’s just a question of scale. Plus one is (apparently) a serious academic and the other is a blabby pundit.
I’d say Hooky is far more influential public figure than Stephen King. I’m pretty sure he’s pulling down bigger dough too.
I think it’s a question of volume and source. One quote from wikipedia is lazy and embarrassing – copying numerous paragraphs from a fellow journalist is career-destroying.
Why is this story about Steven King more newsworthy than the one in the Phoenix two weeks ago about a certain rugby and World War 2 pundit enjoying the benefits of Control C, Control V in a national newspaper recently? Not that King was right to do what he allegedly did. Just how come he’s front page news and that other fellow isn’t?
You’re not factoring in all the horror books he wrote.
Fuck sake Gav, we are talking about academic blasphemy and your messing up too.
Academic blasphemy,/i>?
What’s equally as disturbing as the obvious plagiarism is the fact that King has been writing opinion pieces while simultaneously being employed in a senior role in one of the world’s largest PR firms, APCO. As another blogger, Mike Freedman, has pointed out, APCO “defends dictators, excuses human rights abuses, casts doubts on the carcinogenic effects of smoking, refuses to see pesticides as potentially harmful to humans and classes climate change due to CO2 as a controversial theory.” This is relevant because the article of King’s which was first spotted to be plagiarising was where he was making the point that human population growth is not a strain on our biosphere. Also of note, but which seems to have to been missed, is the work he has been caught passing off as his own. Spiked is not just any old blog, it is a decidedly neo-liberal blog full of pieces written by the old Living Marxism crowd. For the lowdown on LM, visit SpinWatch.
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