iThenticate Blog

Last week we discussed Maine Gubernatorial candidate Les Otten’s problem with plagiarism, which certainly did his campaign no good. This week another case of political plagiarism has moved to the forefront. Vaughn Ward, a republican candidate for Idaho’s first congressional district, was found to have also plagiarized another politician’s speech. The plagiarized material was not just from any other politician and it wasn’t any run-of-the-mill speech. It was President Obama’s 2004 Democratic Convention Speech that is widely considered to have catapulted him towards the presidency.

In politics, every detail matters.  For politicians, personal lives, family history and medical records can make the difference between winning or losing an election. 

International law firm Ropes and Gray is currently facing a $82.5 million plagiarism law suit, filed by their former client Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. 

The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism

One of the continued trends from previous years was the decline of traditional print circulation:  

Are recent incidents of newspaper plagiarism examples of Nature, something that would ‘naturally’ occur due to the inadvertent duplication of content, or Nurture, where plagiarism is happening because of the publishing environment writers are placed in?

There has been a recent series of plagiarism incidents coming out of news publications, from within large organizations like the New York Times to smaller ones like the Daily Beast.  

In a February 10 blog, Gerald Posner did his best to explain an onslaught of plagiarism accusations, and his subsequent resignation from The Daily Beast. 

The New York Times is considered America’s premiere news publication. The paper was established in 1851 and has consistently published some of the best work since its inception, including a large number of Pulitzer prize awarded pieces.  The Times has a reputation for journalistic integrity and an eye for detail.  The New York Times is also one of the largest papers in the world, publishing a large volume of content everyday both in print and online distribution formats. 

A recent case of plagiarism emerged from the Daily Beast online news site late last week.  Daily Beast author Gerald Posner admitted to copying several sentences from a piece in the Miami Herald. 

Comedians have been facing problems with a recent surge in internet plagiarism.  Stand up comics make their livings through their jokes.   Just as a writer creates a story – short or long – comedians spend countless hours crafting their humor and honing their jokes for the sole purpose of raucous laughter upon delivery.