The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
Did you hear that Fareed Zakaria (!) was found to have lifted passages for a column in Time from Jill Lepore's piece on guns in America? He has apologized profusely ("terrible mistake," "serious lapse," "entirely my fault") and been suspended for a month. What next??! Do people not think readers have memories or internet connections?
You would think it must be a mistake -- maybe he had the paragraphs in his notes and somehow mistook them for his own writing or something. Because Fareed Zakaria is very high-profile and Jill Lepore is pretty high profile (she has a new book out!) and the article came out in April -- in fact, I read it only a couple of months ago. (If I didn't say so earlier, it's really good.)
The paragraph and Zakaria's changes read like a lazy midde-school student cribbing a school paper from Wikipedia:
Zakaria in "The Case for Gun Control":
Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual history in Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. Guns were regulated in the U.S. from the earliest years of the Republic. Laws that banned the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813. Other states soon followed: Indiana in 1820, Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839 and Ohio in 1859. Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas (Texas!) explained in 1893, the "mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man."
And Lepore in "Battleground America":
As Adam Winkler, a constitutional-law scholar at U.C.L.A., demonstrates in a remarkably nuanced new book, “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” firearms have been regulated in the United States from the start. Laws banning the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, and other states soon followed: Indiana (1820), Tennessee and Virginia (1838), Alabama (1839), and Ohio (1859). Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.
(Material above lifted from Slate.)
Meryl:
That's so upsetting about Fareed Zakaria! He's such a favorite of mine for his clear statement of the issues and fair approach. His show on CNN is one of the best on cable. I really hope he weathers this reasonably intact. I would certainly miss him dearly during all this election hoo-ha and also for his knowledge of the Middle East. :(
Jeff Wrangler:
Tell you what, I'm certainly not an apologist for anybody's lapses (except, I hope, my own), but I can't help being a little bit suspicious that now in the digital age, when so much of everything, including researching of sources and taking of notes, is being done electronically, that it's going to get even easier and easier to accidentally plagiarize.
And I am talking accidentally. Deliberate plagiarizers will always be with us, but I'm talking about honestly forgetting to note the source for something copied and pasted from an on-line source--or even finding something on line that has included something not properly attributed.
That doesn't excuse Zakaria, who is not known to me, from being more careful in checking his work and his sources, but I'm just sayin'.
Meanwhile, I thought Lepore's article was very good, too, and I note that when Kentucky, Louisiana, and Indiana passed those laws, they were still essentially frontier states.
Jeff Wrangler:
I always rejoice when I open a new issue and see an article by Atul Gawande listed in the table of contents.
I'm currently enjoying his article in the Aug. 13 & 20 issue on the benefits of standardization in medicine. I haven't finished it yet.
When I do, I'll have to see whether I can find the location of the nearest Cheesecake Factory. ;D
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on August 19, 2012, 02:22:34 pm ---I always rejoice when I open a new issue and see an article by Atul Gawande listed in the table of contents.
I'm currently enjoying his article in the Aug. 13 & 20 issue on the benefits of standardization in medicine. I haven't finished it yet.
When I do, I'll have to see whether I can find the location of the nearest Cheesecake Factory. ;D
--- End quote ---
I am so with you on this. I'm in the middle of the Cheesecake Factory piece, too.
Yesterday, a Facebook friend asked for suggestions for creative nonfiction she could assign a class she's teaching. I gave several recommendations, then later thought, Atul Gawande! I gave her the link to his site, and particularly suggested the ones about aging and about end-of-life choices. He's brilliant.
And by the way, Cheesecake Factory is pretty good.
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