Jody Rosen, Slate’s music critic, has written a remarkable story about a weekly paper in Texas that appears to commit plagiarism on a shockingly regular basis.
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?
