C. J. Werleman (b. 1973, Wikipedia bio here) is a writer, commentator, and atheist who has lately used the pages of Salon to attack Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, and Sam Harris for Islamophobia, misogyny, and other sins. These old privileged white males (Sam has been accused recently of “aging”) apparently don’t understand, as Werleman does, that the perfidies of organizations of ISIS don’t reflect Islam, but culture and Western oppression. Here are three of Werleman’s attack-dog pieces in Salon, just from September:

“Atheists don’t get terrorism: Why Sam Harris fails to understand the Islamic ‘threat'”

“Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and atheist’s ugly Islamophobia”

“What atheists like Bill Maher have in common with medieval Christian Crusaders”

Werleman is the atheist’s Reza Aslan.

Salon, of course, odious clickbaiting venue that it is, positively laps up Werleman’s stuff. But perhaps the lapping is through, for if a blogger called “Godless Spellchecker” is correct, Werleman is guilty of some pretty unethical behavior: blatant plagiarism of other people’s words, something you can fail a course for in college (or, in the case of journalists, lose your reputation).

The Godless Spellchecker website has previously accused Werleman of “dubious ethics, misrepresentation, and unoriginal hackery“, and from what I’ve read of Werleman’s posts, I judge him guilty on all those counts. But the new accusations are far more serious.

The latest post on the site is called “Is C. J. Wereleman a plagiarist?” I believe the Conventional Wisdom of such rhetorical questions used as titles is “No,” but in this case it appears to be “Yes”—given the Godless Spellchecker’s comparison of Werleman’s prose with that of earlier works.

To see the magnitude of the problem, here’s a few excerpts from Godless Spellchecker’s piece, including comparisons of Werleman’s prose with previously published pieces by other people:

. . . The above article mentions Dr. Peter Boghossian (@PeterBoghossian), which subsequently prompted a conversation between us. During our conversation, Dr. Boghossian called attention to some things he’d identified in CJ Werleman’s writing that I hadn’t previously considered, and so I decided to conduct an independent investigation to determine whether or not CJ Werleman is guilty of actual plagiarism. (Parts of Dr. Boghossian’s letter have been reprinted here with his permission.)

I’m not an Investigative Journalist or academic, so knowing how and where to begin was a problem. Then I quickly remembered Google exists. I lifted choice sections from some of the articles Werleman published on prominent platforms such as Salon and Alternet. I paid specific attention to paragraphs containing information that would usually require a certain level of knowledge and diligence on the part of the author. My findings raise some serious questions. I shall provide examples below.

The following examples assume all of the dates and names stated on these articles are accurate:

Take this article from Fareed Zakaria: ‘America’s educational failings’ from The Washington Post dated May 1^st 2014 and the following passage:

“The United States had a wide gap between its best performers and worst performers… And it had the widest gap in scores between people with rich, educated parents and poor, undereducated parents.”

And then compare it with this from Werleman’s article published days later at Salon and Alternet:

“The United States has a wide gap between its best performers and its worst performers. And it had the widest gap in scores between people with rich, educated parents and poor, undereducated parents….”

There is no indication that this isn’t Werleman’s original writing or any citation given.

Two other examples:

Take an extract from this article: ‘In Public Education, Edge Still Goes to Rich’ from Nov 2013 By Eduardo Porter:

‘The United States is one of few advanced nations where schools serving better-off children usually have more educational resources than those serving poor students, according to research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Among the 34 O.E.C.D. nations, only in the United States, Israel and Turkey do disadvantaged schools have lower teacher/student ratios than in those serving more privileged students.’

Then compare it with this extract from Werleman’s article on Alternet dated June 2014:

‘Among OECD nations, America remains an outlier, one of the few advanced nations where schools serving better-off children are afforded more funding than those serving poor students. Among the 34 OECD nations, only in the United States, Israel and Turkey do disadvantaged schools have lower teacher/student ratios than in those serving more privileged students‘

and this:

There is also this line from Why Men Love War  by William Broyles Jr. in Esquire, November 1984 (also reprinted in May 2014 as part of a retrospective):

“There is a reason for every war and a war for every reason.”

The line is also used in the first paragraph of Werleman’s article: Why Do We Lust for War? On Alternet:

“There is a reason for every war and a war for every reason.”

There is no indication that this isn’t Werleman’s original writing or any citation given.

Although the last one has fewer words, it irks me even more, for it’s an attempt to use a pithy bon mot to start an article.

These aren’t the only examples that look like outright plagiarism: the Godless Spellchecker gives several more. While I haven’t checked the original sources cited in every example given of Werleman’s purported plagiarism, I’ve checked all three of the ones cited above, and Wereleman’s unattributed copying is accurately represented by Godless Spellchecker.

Those three are enough to suggest that Werleman has repeatedly engaged in plagiarism. That doesn’t, of course, mean that all his words are plagiarized, and they surely aren’t, but this level of unattributed copying is enough to get someone fired as a journalist at a reputable venue.

Let’s see if Salon considers itself reputable in this way. If their investigation shows these accusations to be correct, it should take action against Werleman. And we should no longer regard him as a reputable journalist. I never thought of him as a thoughtful journalist, but I didn’t think of him as an unethical one either.

And I’d expect Werleman to issue a statement explaining every single instance of this apparent copying.