Political staffer fired for plagiarism
It’s not a case of journalistic plagiarism, but this story demonstrates that no plagiarist is safe in the age of Google. From a story in the Burlington Free Press:
A staff member for Republican congressional
candidate Martha Rainville resigned Monday after evidence surfaced that
he had plagiarized other politicians in writing Rainville’s policy
statements.
Staff member Christopher Stewart, who was in charge of policy
research for the Rainville campaign, wrote several policy statements
that Rainville said clearly constitute plagiarism.
"I’m just incredibly disappointed," Rainville said.
Stewart declined to comment Monday night other than to say he supports Rainville’s campaign.
Rainville
said the statements accurately reflect her views on the issues, but she
didn’t know Stewart had taken the wording from other politicians. The
campaign removed the statements from its Web site Monday afternoon and
staff members were rewriting them, Rainville said.
The allegations of plagiarism surfaced after a Westminster
woman found similarities on the Internet. Julie Waters, a Web designer
and musician, said she was researching the race between Rainville and
Democrat Peter Welch because she was considering volunteering for the
Welch campaign.
Waters said after she came across a blog that pointed out
similarities between Rainville’s health care policy and a speech by
President Bush, she wondered if there were other duplications.
"So, I did Google searches," she said. As a psychology
instructor at Community College of Vermont, Waters said she’s familiar
with how easy it is for students to plagiarize from the Internet, and
how easy it is for teachers to catch them by searching for key words…
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