Plagiarism

After reading Poynter's debate I can definitely see the clear conflict regarding Missourian article.

I definitely agree with Poynter's agrument, but unlike Poynter I believe there IS such a thing as unintentional plagiarsm. I know as a journalism student I am still learning many things about what I can and cannot do, what is ethical, and what not. So to me although I feel there should be some punishment as this was clearly wrongdoing, I believe it is an eye opening to many professors and institutions that there is still some miscommunication and disjoint in teaching students the role of a GOOD journalist.

However, I do think it was important for them to address the matter and set an example for other journalism students to follow because credibility is fragile. If they had left the matter alone, it would have shown students that they too can get away with doing it too.

Reading the last story, in response to the Poynter article, I felt compelled to support John Merril's side of the story. The media has glorified this story and ruined his reputation as a journalist without considering the other sides of the story. The fact that he has been a respectable and credible journalist for the paper for many years lends evidence to the fact that he was simply being careless.

In truth how many times have we been careless in our lives? Thousands of times, thats how we loose our keys, fall on ice, or in this case, make wrong decisions. So to me I agree with Miller that this instance may not have been necessarily unethical but rather technical.

I'm not really sure if the Missourian made the right choice to fire Miller, but what I do know is I'm sure this a common practice and if he should get fired, so should many others.

In addition to this I believe if he had no recognized his mistake and apologized, it would also have been a very different story. By doing so he recognizes his stature as a jounalist and that one must be completely honest to their audience. By admitting and apologizing for his faults, Miller took appropriate and professional action.

Although this is all very complicared, this story scared me more than anything. We as journalists hold a lot of power. And to be honest if I had not been overlyconscious and wary of this, I probably would have made the same mistake somewhere down the road unknowingly. Obviously, I am now aware of what can happen, and will never plagiarize, but to be honest I hadn't known that what Miller did was plagiraism. In fact, I have never done it simply because I didn't really know 100 percent if it was acceptable or not so I never did it because I would never risk that. So I'm glad I know now.

It's too bad this had to happen, but it just goes to show that you have to be on your feet constantly as a journalist, and you can't take short cuts. I'm sure many people learned their lesson after reading this.