Greene Publishing mysteriously silent about plagiarism scandal

By Tim McDonald

Journalism experts are puzzled as to why Greene Publishing Inc. has neither publicly addressed nor apologized for the plagiarism scandal that hit the company more than two weeks ago.

Numerous incidents of blatant plagiarism in the company’s newspapers, the Madison County Carrier and Enterprise-Recorder, were uncovered by the Voice, as well as readers and published in a Voice story July 31.

“They (Greene Publishing) should have done a full-fledged follow-up, apologizing and the whole nine yards,” said Ron Dupont, a Director in the Florida Press Association and editor/publisher of the North Florida Herald, in High Springs. “Yeah, your paper is going to take a hit, people will make fun of you and your critics will pound on you. But, it’s the right thing to do, to come out and be open and forthright about it.”

Journalists say the consequences of not being candid with the public, or of hiding behind a wall of silence, can be dire.

“All a newspaper has to sell is its integrity,” DuPont said. “Once people no longer believe in the paper’s truthfulness, then it becomes nothing more than a shopper.”

Most of the known plagiarism was committed by a reporter who admitted putting his name on stories pilfered from the Internet and, in other cases, copying whole segments of stories other than his own. He added there were many other plagiarized stories other than the ones brought to his attention by the Voice. He pleaded ignorance of basic journalism rules regarding plagiarism.

But, long-time journalists say the idea of avoiding theft of other people’s stories is a simple case of knowing right from wrong.

“You can say you don’t know any better, but to me it’s like a teenager saying he didn’t know any better than to steal from a store,” Bob Gabordi, executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat told the Voice. “It’s the same thing – you’re stealing.”

Instead of addressing public concerns, Greene Publishing Publisher Emerald Greene herself committed plagiarism the week after the scandal broke. Her editorial, entitled “Stealing From the Rich and Giving to the Poor in the Name of Healthcare,” lifted entire paragraphs directly from a Web site called Moneynews.com without attribution. Copying even small amounts of previously published content without giving proper credit is considered plagiarism.

In the next edition, Greene wrote about responses to “my editorial,” though much of the article was copied from Moneynews.com. Greene had earlier refused comment when contacted about the plagiarism – both Curtis’ and her own — by the Voice.

Reporters caught in such flagrant plagiarism cases are usually fired immediately and face withering criticism from readers and the journalism community. However, at small newspapers where reporters often have no formal journalism training, or any journalism training at all, offenders are sometimes let off with lighter punishment.

For example, Gary Puleo, a reporter for a small Pennsylvania newspaper called the Times Herald, was caught in 2003 plagiarizing the Philadelphia Enquirer; a Puleo story contained 12 unattributed paragraphs from the Enquirer, according to various news sources, including a Web site called Famous Plagiarists.com.

The paper fired Puleo but he filed a grievance with the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia. After more than a year, an arbitrator ruled the newsroom shared culpability for the plagiarism, because it did not adequately train Puleo on attribution and sourcing.

Puleo was given back his job, with some benefits, though he did have to forfeit three months pay as punishment.

Although Greene Publishing has been in business for 45 years, one reporter told the Voice he never received any training on plagiarism, or any kind of journalism training.

Both the Carrier and Madison Enterprise-Recorder, the other weekly paper Greene Publishing puts out, are members of the Florida Press Association, whose motto is, in part, “to promote and encourage higher standards of journalism.”

The FPA offers training classes in journalism. However, the organization does not offer courses involving plagiarism, explaining that such knowledge should be commonplace.

“That’s pretty basic,” FPA President and CEO Dean Ridings said. “I think that would be covered in most basic journalism programs.”

Dupont said he goes over basic journalism principles with his new college interns, including how to avoid plagiarism. In most cases, they are already well-informed about plagiarism, he said. Dupont also said that plagiarism is normally easier to catch in smaller newspapers.

“If the editor is indeed editing the stories, they’re going to catch on pretty quickly,” he said. “Any good editor running a small newspaper should be able to catch that.”