Regret the Error

A regional bureau chief and freelance columnist at the Chronicle Herald newspaper in Halifax, Nova Scotia has been suspended for six months without pay. "Once he has completed the suspension
and passed a journalism ethics course and other training, he will
return to work as Bureau Chief in our Yarmouth Bureau," read an apology to readers from the paper’s managing editor. A competing newspaper, the Daily News, and a reader alerted the paper to plagiarized material in Medel’s work. We recently came down on Canada’s largest newspaper, the Toronto Star, for its poor handling of a plagiarism incident. But the Herald appears to have done nearly everything right. From the apology:

When we investigated and confirmed
the first reported incident, we cancelled Mr. Medel’s freelance column
immediately and monitored all his staff work until a full investigation
was complete.

Yes.

Mr. Medel, while writing the Hunting and Fishing Column under a
freelance contract, was at the same time also employed by the company
as Bureau Chief in Yarmouth under a collective agreement.
The investigation led us to search for other articles, or pieces of
articles, from Mr. Medel’s work which might have been plagiarized. That
search turned up 10 additional columns written by Mr. Medel as a
freelancer and two stories written as a staff reporter.

Investigate previous work. Yes. Always.

We should expect more from paid journalists, much more.
Journalists take ethics and plagiarism courses as part of their
formal training. Staff of The Chronicle Herald sign and adhere to a set
of ethical guidelines which clearly state: "Stealing someone else’s
wording, quotes or other work is wrong. Readers have the right to
expect that what they read in the newspaper is the author’s own work,
unless otherwise indicated."

Explain why this is unacceptable and articulate your newspaper’s policy regarding plagiarism. Important for readers to know. Yes.

To ensure impartiality in our investigation we went to an outside
expert for his consideration of the matter. He reached conclusions at
least as strong as ours concerning Mr. Medel’s plagiarism.

Bringing in an objective third party to verify your findings and add credibility. Yes.

For the reasons stated above, we have
suspended Mr. Medel for six months without pay. Once he has completed
the suspension and passed a journalism ethics course and other
training, he will return to work as Bureau Chief in our Yarmouth Bureau.

Disciplinary action taken and communicated. Yes.

Education, vigilance and technology will play key roles in protecting our writers and editors as well as you, our loyal readers.

We have lined up numerous seminars for staff focusing on plagiarism
and especially the impact of the World Wide Web on today’s reporting.
The Internet is a wonderful tool in searching for background and
cross-referencing material, but credit must be given where credit is
due.

We are implementing a renewed, watchful defence against plagiarism
within the newspaper at all levels of the story process, from reporter
through copy desk to page proofing.

We have taken remedial actions to protect the fundamental integrity
and credibility of the newspaper and the journalists who work with the
newspaper and who live by the accepted ethics policy.

We deeply apologize to you, our readers. We thank the
reader who pointed out the problem and we will endeavour to make sure
it never happens again.

Concrete steps being taken to prevent this from happening again. Internal training being offered. A sincere apology and expression of regret. Yes.

A terrible situation. An effective, professional response. Yes. UPDATE: We received a thoughtful email from reader Susan Fox about the Herald’s response:

After reading your glowing praise for The Chronicle-Herald’s reaction to a case of plagiarism, I have one concern. While I agree that it was dealt with far better than other publications might have, one thing was missing from the apology that appeared in the newspaper: what the actual offence was.
Plagiarism is a loaded word, and includes everything from including vague ideas without sourcing them to stealing word for word. Readers cannot judge the paper’s reaction because they have no idea what the degree of infraction was…
Chronicle-Herald readers should know more than just that the writer "did not properly credit the source of the material," which doesn’t say much about what actually happened. Plagiarism is serious and should be taken seriously. But throwing it around without properly qualifying it with a specific explanation is fair to neither the readers nor the reporter being accused.

Fox makes a good point and we thank her for raising the issue. It’s not exactly clear what Medel did, or how widespread his offenses were. Just as important, the Herald didn’t offer any restitution to the authors who had their work plagiarized. Why aren’t they cited and given their long-overdue credit? The Herald did a lot of things right in this case. But, as Fox points out, the paper wasn’t perfect.

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