Yesterday I reported on the blogger Godless Spellchecker‘s report that the atheist journalist C. J. Werleman had apparently plagiarized some of his prose from at least half a dozen sources. Werleman’s purloined wording was, to my mind, quite blatant. In response, Werleman first argued that he’d done nothing wrong: that he was just citing “facts” (which happened be cited in the same words as the original sources), or that his “plagiarisms” were clichés that didn’t need citation. Here’s his rather haughty response in the comments:
The last bit is a lame excuse for stealing words. Hitch was surely referring to borrowing ideas rather than words. Further, the “War for every reason” phrase doesn’t seem to me to be a cliché, for, when I Googled it, it turned up in only one place: the source from which Wereleman is accused of lifting it. And I don’t buy the notion that using the exact words as your source is simply citing “facts,” and is therefore okay.
A bit later Werleman admits that he did lift a quote, and for some reason forgot to cite it because of “sloppiness”. He also says that because he did cite surces in other places, this somehow mitigates the plagiarism: an argument I find unconvincing.
On further thought, I have no excuse for the OECD ‘Education Failing’s’ quote. Why I hadn’t enclosed that, I don’t know. It should’ve been. Very sloppy. But if you look over the entire body of my work, you’ll see that all of my op-eds are riddled with citations and quotes.
But that’s not the end of it. As one often finds when pursuing a writer who uses other people’s words, the problem is deeper than it first appears. Or so it appears from a post by Michael Luciano in yesterday’s The Daily Banter, “New Atheist-basher and plagiarizer apparently thinks it’s no big deal.”
Luciano, in a series of updates, finds at least 7 more cases in which Werleman appears to have lifted words from other people without attribution. This suggests that there may be many more cases that haven’t yet been uncovered. I’ll cite just four of the new ones:
UPDATE I:
Chuck Thompson, Better Off Without ‘Em, 2012:
“‘Public schools have been the great leveler of America. They were our great achievement. Universal education for all.’”
Werleman, Salon, May 5, 2014:
“During the New Deal era of the 1940s to 1970s, public schools were the great leveler of America. They were our great achievement. It was universal education for all…”
Werleman mentions Thompson’s book, but he gives no indication these are not his own words.
***
UPDATE III:
The ‘Green Dragon’ Slayers, (Report by People for the American Way) 2011:
“Buoyed by corporate finances and a radical ‘dominion theology,’ the Religious Right has become more aggressive and fanatical in its defense of corporations and denial of climate science.”
Werleman, Alternet, November 18, 2013:
“Buoyed by corporate finances and a radical ‘dominion theology, the Christian Right has become increasingly aggressive in its defense of corporations and its denial of climate change.”
Werleman does not mention the report or give any indication that these are not his words.
***
UPDATE IV:
Pew Research Report, May 24, 2013:
“In fact, the percentage of Americans who say they could not afford the food needed by their families at some point in the last year is three times that in Germany, more than twice that in Italy and Canada.”
Werleman, Alternet, December 9, 2013:
“In fact, the percentage of Americans who say they could not afford the food needed to feed their families at some point in the last year is three times that of Germany, more than twice than Italy and Canada.”
Werleman does not cite the Pew Report or give any indication that these are not his words. [JAC: Here the wording of the original and duplicate differs only by about four words!]
Luciano also cites one case in which Werleman might have lifted prose from the frequent object of his ire: Sam Harris himself! But I’ll let you look at that supposedly plagiarized quote.
***
Here’s one more case, in which Wereleman appears to have used wording from—of all places—Wikipedia: an undergraduate mistake!:
UPDATE VII
Wikipedia entry on the National Union Party:
“The temporary name was used to attract War Democrats and Border State Unionists who would not vote for the Republican Party.
“…The National Union Party was created in 1864 prior the end of the Civil War. A faction of anti-Lincoln Radical Republicans held the belief that Lincoln was incompetent, and therefore could not be re-elected. A number of Radical Republicans formed a party called the Radical Democracy Party. The party nominated incumbent President Abraham Lincoln and former Democrat Andrew Johnson, who were elected in a landslide.”
Werleman, Alternet, February 12, 2014:
“In 1864, prior to the end of the Civil War, a faction of radical Republicans believed President Lincoln was incompetent, and therefore unelectable. These anti-abolition extremists broke away from the establishment under the name Radical Democracy Party, while Lincoln and establishment Republicans created the National Union Party with the intent of attracting War Democrats and Border State Unionists who would not have ordinarily voted for the Republican Party.
“The party nominated incumbent President Lincoln alongside a Democrat — Andrew Johnson. The rebranded establishment ticket went on to win the 1864 election in a landslide.”
Werleman does not mention Wikipedia or a cite any references for this information.
Luciana notes that this is ironic in view of a tw**t Werleman made last year about Rand Paul’s similar theft:
I predict that Werleman will find reasons to excuse this shameful theft of other people’s words, and will not be contrite, but continue his usual pattern of obstreperous and aggressive behavior.
But as the number of cases mount, he looks worse and worse. If he is to maintain any credibility, he’s going to have to apologize. You can get away with saying you “forgot” to attribute a single quote, but when it’s more than a dozen (and I predict others will follow), that won’t wash. What is bizarre is that he must have had some of the sources before him as he wrote, and wasn’t even savvy enough to put the facts in his own words.
Salon and Alternet have a duty to not only report Werleman’s plagiarism, which appears ironclad at this point, but to take action against him. If they don’t ban him from their pages, I won’t necessarily be surprised (my opinion of Salon is lower than a snake’s belly), but I will certainly stop citing them. Failure to deep-six a plagiarizing writer is a serious breach of journalistic ethics. You can argue that Salon and Alternet are not journalistic venues, but that’s not how they present themselves. ~
How extraordinary. The first is from the study the piece spoke to those exact findings. These are the citations of the facts from that study.
The second WTF are you talking about?: “The findings of the Flinders University study are supported by the research conducted at the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Terrorism, which was partly funded by the Defense Department’s Threat Reduction Agency. The authors, Robert A. Pape.”
The third is a commonly used cliche. “War for every reason. A reason for every war.”
The fourth is another commonly used cliche when speaking to Iran’s anti-Israel strategy: “Khomeini’s strategy had always been that Iran had to be more Arab than the Arabs…”
Finally, here’s a quote from Hitchens: “Plagiarism = that most obvious and banal discovery of the literary truth.