Here’s an excerpt from a statement by the paper’s publisher:

Throughout our history we have served the community by highlighting wrongdoing and violations of ethics when we find them. It is only right that we focus the same light on ourselves when we are wrong.

So, it’s incumbent upon me as publisher to tell you that we failed to meet our own standards and, as we would with anyone else, we are flagging it, calling it wrong and taking action.

In short, after an extensive internal review, we have determined that over the last several weeks The Courant plagiarized the work of some of our competitors. This was not our intent, but it is in fact what happened. We are taking corrective action to prevent it from happening again. We have also disciplined the individuals involved.

There’s not much detail there, so here’s a nut graf from Editor & Publisher:

Last week, Chris Powell, managing editor of The Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Conn., complained in a letter to Graziano that the Courant had been “misappropriating on a wholesale basis local stories published in the Journal Inquirer” since late July, according to a Journal Inquirer report. Jeffrey S. Levine, the Courant’s senior vice president and director of content, said the letter prompted the Courant’s review of its aggregation practices.

AP also has some good background. Finally, a blog maintained by former Courant staffers offers additional details, including an internal memo that describes some fairly outrageous behavior (emphasis mine):

It is and has always been our policy to offer proper attribution. Over the last few weeks, The Courant carried several news stories in which the original news source attributions were removed and credit was given to a Courant staffer.   This was plagiarism.  It happened on our watch. Disciplinary action for those involved, including ourselves, has been taken today.  We’ve put procedures in place to insure that these mistakes never happen again.

The site reports that “Six people at the Hartford Courant, including Content Manager Jeff Levine and Editor Naedine Hazell, have been disciplined by Tribune for their role in plagiarizing material from their competitors’ newspapers.”

Thanks to all who sent this in.

*Correction Sept. 15, 2009: The word plagiarism was misspelled as “plagiairsm” in this headline. Thanks to a commenter for spotting this typo. Update Sept. 16: As David pointed out in the comments, my corrected spelling of the word omitted the second “i.” Very sloppy. I apologize.

The world’s most infamous agent of nuclear proliferation, Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, has added a fresh feather to his cap following revelations that a newspaper column he penned two weeks ago for Pakistan’s The News heavily plagiarized websites of British universities…

The newspaper column in question, “Science of computers — part I,” appears to have been lifted almost verbatim, from the computer science homepages of the University of Sussex, Imperial College London, and the University of Cambridge. A blow-by-blow comparison can be viewed in a letter to the editor of Pakistani daily The News, the same paper which carried the original column. (In the letter, the link to the University of Sussex is broken. Click here for the correct page.)

Reaction on the Pakistani blogosphere has been harsh, with one blog carrying the item under the headline “A.Q. Khan Plagiarizing Op-Ed Pieces After Lifetime Of Stealing And Selling Nuclear Secrets” in reference to the allegations of espionage that dogged Mr Khan’s tenure as head of Pakistan’s nuclear program.

Thanks, Steve!

Early in the summer, the paper faced criticism for firing a summer intern under questionable circumstances. Then, in July, the editor and publisher had to step down after the paper started a national scandal by printing false allegations about the Canadian Prime Minister (background here and here).

Now? Plagiarism. A report from CBC.ca:

The Telegraph-Journal has apologized for its third error in the last few months after a reporter plagiarized a story from New Brunswick’s French-language daily newspaper.

Irving-owned Brunswick News Inc.’s flagship newspaper apologized in its Saturday edition for a story that it says a contract reporter translated from L’Acadie Nouvelle and filed it using her byline without attributing the source.

"The Telegraph-Journal expects its journalists to operate with honesty and integrity; a bare translation without credit or attribution is plagiarism and is contrary to the Telegraph-Journal’s core ethics and principles," the apology said.

The newspaper has terminated the contract of the reporter who filed the story …

I think the CBC’s report is somewhat misleading when it calls this the paper’s "third error in the last few months." Maybe I’m nitpicking, but I’m sure the paper has made other factual errors over the summer. Any newspaper would have. So perhaps it’s more accurate to call this the paper’s third "major" error, or third scandal?

The paper’s apology doesn’t appear to be online.:

The Telegraph-Journal published an article last Thursday on the economic spinoffs of the World Acadian Congress by Cheryl Norrad, a contract writer for the newspaper.

The writer translated the story for publication under her own name without acknowledging L’Acadie Nouvelle as the source. She was dismissed from the paper following an investigation.

While news and ideas are public, the words to convey them are not. The Telegraph-Journal expects its journalists to operate with honesty and integrity; a bare translation without credit or attribution is plagiarism and is contrary to the Telegraph-Journal’s core ethics and principles.

We deeply regret that this occurred and we will be taking steps to ensure this does not happen again.

We have apologized to our colleagues at L’Acadie Nouvelle without reservation and we apologize to you, our readers.

Thanks, Trevor!

The cover article of The Times Magazine on Sunday reported on whales and the possibility of interspecies communication between them and humans. The final two paragraphs of the article described an occasion in 2005 when a humpback whale became entangled in crab-trap ropes and was freed by a rescue team. Some of the language in the retelling of that event was identical to descriptions of the rescue in an e-mail message that circulated widely after the incident. Specifically, the lines that the whale swam “in joyous circles” after it was freed and “nudged” the divers gently, “as if in thanks”; that the divers thought it was “the most beautiful experience they ever had”; and that one diver said he would “never be the same” appeared in the e-mail message, which was sent to The Times’s writer, Charles Siebert, in the course of his reporting. In seeking to confirm the accuracy of the article, Mr. Siebert read several accounts of the episode, including one published by The San Francisco Chronicle in December 2005 on which he based his retelling.

Mr. Siebert said that he unwittingly incorporated some of the phrasing from the e-mail message that he had been sent earlier. The Times does not allow writers to replicate language without attribution, and had the editors known of these repetitions, they would not have published the passage in that form. Link

Gawker notes that the paper’s reaction to Siebert’s transgression is very different from how it handled the Maureen Dowd incident back in May. From the Gawker post:

…it’s not different—at all—from what Maureen Dowd did in May, when she "inadvertently" copied an entire paragraph written by Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall into her column. Dowd’s explanation for the slip was that she was "talking to a friend of mine…who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent — and I assumed spontaneous — way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column…but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me." We have to assume, giving Dowd the benefit of the doubt, that she was referring to an e-mail conversation, because it’s preposterous to imagine that her friend verbally recounted a 43-word paragraph word-for-word and that Dowd took it down in her notes as such. So it was an instance of a Times reporter unintentionally lifting language from an e-mail.

When Siebert does it, he gets a 232-word editor’s-note-lashing explaining, in finite detail, how the error happened. When Dowd does it, she gets this:

Correction: May 18, 2009
Maureen Dowd’s column on Sunday, about torture, failed to attribute a paragraph about the timeline for prisoner abuse to Josh Marshall’s blog at Talking Points Memo.

Our report "Jools Holland’s castle joins band of at-risk monuments" (June 23) referred to Saltwood Castle in Kent and its owner Jane Clark, who has succeeded in having Saltwood removed from English Heritage’s at-risk register. The information and quotes about Saltwood were taken from an article by Robin Stummer in the latest edition of Cornerstone, the magazine of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, but that attribution was cut from our reporter’s original copy in the editing process. We apologise for the error and for any embarrassment it has caused.

*Correction July 21: The word plagiarism was misspelled in the original version of this headline. Thanks, Charlene!

On Tuesday I learned that The Gazette has published four news stories during the past month that contain passages that are substantially similar, and in some cases identical, to passages in news stories originally published by The New York Times.

For this reason, reporter Hailey Mac Arthur, a college student doing a summer internship in our newsroom, has been dismissed from The Gazette. The Gazette forbids plagiarism, which is the act of employing the creative work of someone else and passing it off as your own. None of the four Gazette articles attributed borrowed material to the Times, as is required when quoting the work of some other publication…

The paper lists the passages taken from the Times and concludes with this:

Every day, tens of thousands of citizens come to The Gazette and gazette.com in good faith, expecting from us in return that we will report the news as accurately, completely and originally as possible. That good-faith relationship is the foundation of all that makes The Gazette a viable enterprise. Without trust in our journalism, there is no business. For breaching that trust, I apologize to all Gazette readers.

When it comes to the integrity of our journalism, we owe you the same amount of accountability that The Gazette demands of public institutions in the name of their constituents. We will never be perfect, but we will always strive to live up to the principles of journalism and the trust placed in us by readers.

Thanks, Romenesko!

Thurber’s column for May 24, “A History of Memorial Day,” was accused by a contributor of SwampBubbles.com of containing plagiarized lines.
Upon learning of the accusation, Toledo Free Press Editor in Chief Michael S. Miller pulled the column from the Web site and indefinitely suspended Thurber pending an investigation.
Thurber responded to the suspension with the following resignation:
“My Toledo Free Press column, ‘The History of Memorial Day,’ was a compilation of various facts and information from various sources. Because of the numerous sources of the same specific facts and similar information, I did not include in the article the various attributions as I should have. For that, I apologize.
Alternatively, in order to avoid any misconceptions, I could have stated at the start of the article that the facts and information which followed were a compilation from multiple resources. I’m sorry for not making that clear.
When I sent the article to [Miller], I originally had a note in the email that the information was a compilation – just to be sure that [Miller] knew the nature of the column. I changed that note and just sent the article, as I usually do, without explanation. By not making this clear to [Miller], as the editor, I placed the Toledo Free Press into a compromising situation. For that, I also apologize.
I have the training and experience to know better and make no excuse for this error.
As I do not want my mistake to be used against [Miller] in any way, especially considering [Miller's] prior unwavering support, I would like to resign as a columnist, effective immediately.I am forever grateful for the opportunity to write for you.” …

Thanks, Steve!

*Correction June 2: The date on the Free Press article reads May 22, but this is impossible because the offending column was published on May 24. This was the paper’s error, but I should have caught it and not repeated it in my post. Thanks Doug!

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the tweedy Conservative candidate for the new parliamentary seat of North-East Somerset, has been caught red-handed trying to rip off the Sun newspaper in his latest campaign leaflet.
Rees-Mogg – who, as the son of the former Times editor Lord Rees-Mogg, should perhaps know better – admitted that a flier posted through residents’ doors in the constituency contained text lifted directly from an article by the Sun’s political guru Trevor Kavanagh. “Though the piece expresses my views, I did not specifically write it, although I agree with the points made,” says the Moggster, pictured left.
“While the points are valid, plagiarism is a bad thing and I will drop a note to Mr Kavanagh apologising. We won’t ask the person who did write this to write for us again. It’s an embarrassing matter for which I apologise.”
To his credit, Kavanagh is taking what amounts to intellectual theft with a pinch of salt. “Jacob was good enough to call and apologise” he told me. “I told him I was flattered and not at all offended.” Link

Via Greenslade.

In our Feb. 2 issue we published a story about Lukoil and its president titled “Russia’s King of Crude,”” the apology will read, a copy of which was obtained by The Observer. “We have since discovered that several passages were lifted from “The Triumph of the Quiet Tycoon,” written by Peter Maass and published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine on Aug. 1, 2004. Fortune apologizes to Mr. Maass and the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

The Observer also reports that Fortune conducted a review of Gimbel’s previous work and didn’t discover any other examples of plagiarism. From the story:

When the author of the Fortune story, a young, rising star at the magazine named Barney Gimbel, was presented with the two stories and the lifted passages during an internal investigation, he offered his resignation …
When we asked a Fortune spokesperson about his departure, she said: “We do not comment on personnel issues.”
Gerry Marzorati, the editor of The New York Times Magazine, said that a few weeks ago the author of the plagiarized story, Peter Maass, contacted Fortune editors about several passages that looked nearly identical to his own. Fortune editors contacted Mr. Marzorati immediately and said they were looking into it …
“As far as I’m concerned, things were resolved amicably and fairly,” said Mr. Marzorati. “They did the right thing. They alerted us, they said they were going to do an internal investigation, and they didn’t stonewall in anyway. They acted courteously and professionally the entire process.”
The question is now what happens to Mr. Gimbel.
According to a Fortune staffer, during the investigation they found no other examples of plagiarism in his work.

UPDATE March 6: Portfolio’s Jeff Bercovici reports that Gimbel’s previous work for Newsweek has also been checked for plagiarism:

Although Gimbel quickly resigned, an in-house review of his work for Fortune turned up no other instances of plagiarism. And now I’m told that Newsweek, where Gimbel worked previously, has concluded its own review of Gimbel’s articles and found nothing amiss, suggesting the lifting in his Lukoil story was a one-off.

An editor at nydailynews.com, the Web site of the New York Daily News, acknowledged Thursday that a Web reporter, Rosemary Black, lifted, without attribution, part of a Feb. 3 Express-News story.
Plagiarism, or passing off another person’s work as though it were your own, is considered a cardinal sin of journalism.
The Express-News story, “Kissing at mall leads to fight in court,” by E-N staff writer Jeorge Zarazua, was published on Page 1.
The nydailynews.com story, published online a day later, “Kissing is no crime, say women arrested in San Antonio mall,” used, without crediting the Express-News, two quotations given only to Zarazua and two paragraphs crafted by Zarazua that led into the quotes.

After hearing from the Express-News, the Daily News updated the article to include the proper attribution. The paper also appended an editor’s note:

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story should have attributed quotes by certain individuals to reporting by the San Antonio Express-News.

This is about as weak as the paper’s earlier correction for twice misidentifying a woman as the “Manhattan Madam.” The note doesn’t mention plagiarism, and it ignores the two stolen paragraphs that preceded the copied quotes.

Rogers Sportsnet has pulled NFL commentator Chris Landry off the air and removed his column from Sportsnet.ca following an allegation of plagiarism.
Some of Landry’s columns on Sportsnet.ca have contained word for word passages from Internet pieces written by Mike Lombardi and Andrew Brandt of NationalFootballPost.com.
Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com cited several examples. One of them:
Lombardi: ”Pittsburgh is really playing well right now and doing a better job of protecting Big Ben. I never thought the Steelers could win on the road with Max Starks at left tackle, but they are. Holding the Pats to one third-down conversion was just amazing. When they play on a fast track, their defense is even faster.”
Landry: ”Pittsburgh is really playing well right now and doing a better job of protecting quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. The Steelers could win on the road with Max Starks at left tackle, but they are. Holding the Pats to one third-down conversion was just amazing. When they play on a fast track, their defense is even faster.”
Sportsnet is investigating, but wasn’t ready to make a statement Thursday.

Sportsnet has placed this editor’s note at the top of its coumnists page:

Portions of freelance writer Chris Landry’s columns published recently on Sportsnet.ca contained verbatim passages from columns that were previously published on nationalfootballpost.com.  Mr. Landry’s columns will no longer be published on our site.  Sportsnet.ca apologizes to our readers and to nationalfootballpost.com.

Landry’s column archive is still online here.

Rosen’s investigation into the Bulletin, a weekly in Montgomery County, Texas, began after he received an email informing him that his “… profile of musician Jimmy Buffett was reproduced wholesale without attribution” in the Bulletin. The culprit is Mark Williams, the paper’s music editor and a staff writer. But it goes deeper than one writer of one article. The examples of plagiarism identified by Rosen are too numerous to list here, but here’s a sample:

Since 2005, the Bulletin has published dozens of stories under Williams’ byline that appear to be copied, whole or in part, from other periodicals. Compare the Bulletin’s Nov. 4, 2005, Franz Ferdinand piece and this NME review, published five weeks prior; the Bulletin’s Steely Dan pieceAll About Jazz (July 4, 2006); the (July 14, 2006) and this article from the Web site Bulletin’s Black Rebel Motorcycle Club feature (June 14, 2007) and an earlier Boston Globe piece (May 25, 2007); the Bulletin’s McKay Brothers article (Nov. 11, 2006) and this Dallas Observer item (Oct. 19, 2006); and the Bulletin’s “God and Country: More Popular Artists Are Now Singing a Spiritual Tune” (Sept. 20, 2007) and the Billie Joe Shaver concert review by Washington Post pop critic J. Freedom du Lac (Sept. 13, 2007). The Eagles piece published in the Bulletin on Dec. 13, 2007 is a nearly word-for-word recapitulation of David Fricke’s Rolling Stone review (Nov. 1, 2007). Mark Williams sought inspiration from USA Today for his features on Paul Simon (USA Today version; Bulletin version) and Tom Petty (USA Today version; Bulletin version). The Evanston, Ill.-based blog Pop Matters is the apparent source of articles on Dwight Yoakam (Pop Matters version; Bulletin version) and Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs (Pop Matters version; Bulletin version). And then there’s “Crazy About ‘Crazy’ ” (March 2, 2007), Williams’ deconstruction of the monster 2006 pop hit by Gnarls Barkley—an article that bears a striking resemblance to “Crazy for ‘Crazy’,” published six months earlier in Slate.

And so on. Uncovering these sources is a matter of choosing the right phrases to dump into Google, not a difficult feat for anyone moderately attuned to writerly rhythms.

Rosen had a few exchanges with the Bulletin’s editor/publisher, but now no one at the paper will reply to his emails or return his calls.

UPDATE Aug. 7, 9:17 a.m.: I checked the Bulletin’s website and it no longer offers access to any content. Is this a result of Rosen’s investigation?

On June 3, this newspaper carried a column describing the travails of a girls’ basketball coach. Editors are deeply disturbed to learn that parts of the column were taken from a 2002 piece that appeared in Sports Illustrated.
This deception violates The Herald’s commitment to earning and maintaining community trust. It also violates journalistic standards: It is never acceptable to take credit for work that is not our own. We must be forthright about the matters we report as well as the sources of our information.
Herald sports writer John Sleeper has acknowledged that his column, “Trust Me, Coaching Girls Is a Whole New Ballgame,” included passages borrowed from a column written by Rick Reilly for Sports Illustrated. Sleeper has been placed on suspension pending an in-depth review of the matter.
The Herald has apologized to Reilly for the unauthorized use of his work. We also apologize to our readers and promise to do everything possible to prevent this kind of failure in the future.

The offending column is online here. As of now, it includes no mention of plagiarism.

This is the second time in less than two months that a sports journalist has been busted for plagiarising from an old Rick Reilly column. In early June, Dave Pratt, a Vancouver radio personality, lost his column in the Vancouver Province after he stole from a 2000 Reilly column in Sports Illustrated. When contacted for comment, he told the CBC, “It was a Saturday and I wanted to get out of [the office] before noon.”

In early March, it aired a scathing seven minute report about Australian technology news journalist and publisher David Richards. It seems that a significant number of stories posted with his byline on his websites were been taken word-for-word from news outlets such as PC Magazine, the Daily Telegraph, etc.

When contacted by Media Watch, Richards explained that he had licensing agreements with publishers that enable him to use their copy. Media Watch then showed that to be false. So Richards offered another explanation:

We believe that a former employee who had access to our content engine has changed bylines, dates on stories and posted stories without our knowledge in an effort to discredit us.

Right. The story is called the “Phantom of the Internet” and it’s well worth a view. The transcript and video are here on the Media Watch site. YouTube is below. Seriously, watch it.