The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University's student newspaper, recently suspended two staff members who allegedly plagiarized material for the paper. Although reports of such incidents - like one in 2004 when an Eagle columnist was suspended for allegedly plagiarizing material - are infrequent, they bring up issues of ethics in college media much like those dealt with by professional journalists.
The Crimson first suspended a columnist for using information published in an online magazine without crediting the source. One week later, they suspended a cartoonist when they found that at least four of her submissions to the newspaper were very similar to cartoons published in other places by other artists, according to CNN.com.
These suspensions came after The Crimson broke a story on suspected plagiarism in a Harvard undergrad's novel last spring. Kaavya Viswanathan's book, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life," which was published during her sophomore year at Harvard, had several passages either similar or identical to those in two books by author Megan McCafferty, according to The Crimson's Web site.
Viswanathan's book was pulled by the publisher, who also cancelled her two-book contract, according to The Crimson's Web site.
The Crimson did not return numerous calls for comment.
The Eagle had an incident of possible plagiarism in September 2004 when a guest columnist's work was discovered to be questionable after publication, according to former Eagle Editor in Chief Anne Godlasky.
The arguments and several sentences presented in a column by Joshua Wu, a current senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, were very similar to those in a published book by author Josh McDowell, "The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict," according to a Letter from the Editor Godlasky published in October 2004.
Wu denied any deliberate plagiarism, explaining that he had read McDowell's book extensively in the past. The Eagle removed Wu's column from The Eagle's Web site and disallowed publication of any future submissions by the writer, according to Godlasky's letter.
Wu said he was surprised by the punishment he received. He found that many of the line-by-line comparisons made between his column and the book in question were grammatical, and said that is simply his style of writing. At the time, Wu was upset by the incident, but said he did not feel it was necessary to pursue it any further. Looking back now and comparing his situation to the Harvard Crimson case, "I question the severity of the punishment," Wu said.
Suspending the Crimson staffers in question was understandable, where perhaps dismissing him completely was a hasty decision, he said. Wu cautions writers to be diligent about crediting sources and suggests citation strategies similar to those used when writing a research paper.
"It would've been irresponsible to continue publishing someone who had plagiarized in the past," Godlasky said.
The Eagle staff studied Wu's past columns and found no other instances of plagiarism, she said.
Godlasky said plagiarism in student newspapers is often hard to catch, as some of the topics and related published materials are rather obscure. In this case, an Eagle reader e-mailed Godlasky, alerting her that Wu's column shared more than coincidental similarities to McDowell's book. Godlasky then confronted Wu about the allegations, she said.
Scott Dunphy, a freshman in the Kogod School of Business, said he stopped reading The New York Times when it was revealed in 2003 that Jayson Blair, one of their reporters, had repeatedly committed journalistic fraud.
However, "if it's one article, I'll probably still read it," he said.
