Tim Ryan, a reporter with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, has been revealed as a plagiarist by "sleuthing" editors at Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. The Hawaii Reporter, an online publication, has also stepped in to make further accusations involving other sources.
Tied up in this is the Reporter’s displeasure at a recent Star-Bulletin ad campaign that says readers can only get the "truth" from the Star-Bulletin.
Wikipedia has an article that places Ryan’s text alongside the words from stories he cribbed from. (NOTE: The previous sentence initially said the Wikipedia article only compared Ryan’s work to Wikipedia "articles." It includes comparisons with other sources in addition to a single Wiki article.)
Wikipedia’s newsletter also has a story about the plagiarism, which can be read here. Writes Michael Snow in the Wikipedia piece:

Sleuthing Wikipedia editors have found several cases of apparent
plagiarism over the past two years by Tim Ryan, a reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
It began with the discovery of an article last month containing
language that closely matched a Wikipedia article, and more
investigation found earlier articles that seemed to borrow from
additional sources without attribution.
In response to these reports, the Star-Bulletin acknowledged the situation by adding corrections or editor’s notes to some of the articles. Star-Bulletin
Editor Frank Bridgewater took these actions after investigating the
incident and also met with the newspaper’s publisher, Dennis Francis,
about the situation. However, Bridgewater said last week that he
considered the issue of whether any action would be taken against Ryan
"a confidential personnel matter."

The Reporter has an article about Ryan where it alleges he also stole from other sources. It provides some text-to-text comparisons. (As a reader pointed out to us, the Reporter’s piece is not without its own flaws: It incorrectly calls Michael Snow "Tony Snow" and wrongly refers to Wikipedia as a "popular news Web site." NOTE: These errors have been corrected.)
Ryan’s offenses are serious and the Star-Bulletin is being less than forthcoming about his status at the paper. The Reporter says he was suspended for a month but the editor of the Star-Bulletin refuses to comment further on his status. Certainly there’s some competitive animosity tied up in this, but the Star-Bulletin needs to be more forthcoming about the action it is taking in response to the overwhelming evidence against its reporter. (NOTE: See update below.) A month’s suspension is incredibly light for a serial plagiarist.
Not to pile on, but back in 2001 the Star-Bulletin ran a prescient editorial (second one) about plagiarism that focused on students and didn’t mention journalists:

PLAGIARISM is the easiest it has ever been because of the simplicity
with which a computer can copy and paste a clever phrase, paragraph or
more from an Internet flowing with brilliance. Detecting plagiarism
also is at its easiest, by merely placing quotation marks around
suspiciously clever wordage and conducting an Internet search. Great
minds, we all know, don’t think that much alike.

UPDATE Jan 14: The paper’s editor announced it has fired Ryan. This ran on the front page of the Star-Bulletin on January 13:

Inquiry prompts reporter’s dismissal

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin has dismissed entertainment reporter Tim
Ryan following an investigation into stories he wrote during the past
several years.
The stories contained phrases or sentences that appeared elsewhere
before being included, un-attributed, in stories that ran in the
Star-Bulletin. The stories did not include inaccurate information or
any fabrications.
Ryan, who had been at the Star-Bulletin since 1984, wrote the stories while a member of the features department.
A correction or editor’s note has been added online at starbulletin.com to the following Ryan stories:

Aloha Airlines documentary (Dec. 22, 2005)

Chris Botti interview (Nov. 25, 2005)

Toyota test-drive (June 7, 2005)

Matt Haimovitz interview (Dec. 17, 2004)

Paul Sorvino interview (Nov. 5, 2003)

Chris Isaak review (April 30, 2001)

The Star-Bulletin takes very seriously any allegations of journalistic
misconduct. We know that the integrity of the newspaper is paramount,
and we will do whatever is necessary to uphold it.
Every day, we thank you for the trust you have placed in us, and we
sincerely regret any violations of that trust. Please be assured that
we will do everything possible to continue to deserve your support.

Frank Bridgewater
Editor

This is the correct course of action, and it’s good that the paper lists the plagiarized articles and placed corrections/Editor’s Notes in them. Here’s a sample of how one of those reads:

A portion of a review of the television show "Secrets of the Black Box: Aloha Flight 243" was taken verbatim from the Web site reference.com. The material was originally published in the online encyclopedia wikipedia.com. The article, on Page D6 Thursday, failed to attribute the information to either source.

Nit pick: The paper should have correctly attributed the material to Wikipedia within the article. As it stands you read the article and then see this correction at the bottom, so it’s not clear what parts were stolen. Nitty nit pick: The correction should be at the start of the article, not the end.

 Report an error