Maureen Dowd Admits Inadvertently Lifting Line From TPM's Josh Marshall

UPDATE: New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, in an email to Huffington Post, admits that a paragraph in her Sunday column was lifted from Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall's blog last Thursday.

Dowd claims that she never read his blog last week but was told the line by a friend of hers. In a follow-up email, she forwarded her desire to apologize to Marshall, writing that had she known, she would have gladly credited Marshall.

Dowd notes that the Times is fixing her column online to give proper credit to Marshall and that a correction will run tomorrow;

josh is right. I didn't read his blog last week, and didn't have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now.

i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column.

but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me.
we're fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow.

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New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is being accused of plagiarizing from Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall.

This afternoon, a blogger named "thejoshuablog" (not Marshall) at TPM Cafe claimed that a paragraph in Dowd's Sunday column matches a paragraph from Josh Marshall's story that appeared on TPM last Thursday.

Story continues below

Dowd wrote:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Marshall wrote:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Blogger "thejoshuablog" notes that the only difference is that Dowd changed "we were" to "the Bush crowd was."

And he concludes:

So, if this isn't outright plagiarism by a top NY Times Editorialist, than I'm a happily married, straight man with 4 kids, 2 dogs, a lovely 2nd wife of 15 years with a girl half my age on the side.

Which I assure you all, I am not.

Back in 1987, Dowd herself is the one who exposed then-presidential candidate Joe Biden's plagiarism of British politician Neil Kinnock's speeches.

A spokesperson for the Times and Marshall have not returned emails for comment.

Comments

[oldfuzz]

It's an "oops" and she seems to be doing the right thing. Some of my best original lines were on Stewart and Colbert yesterday and I don't know how they got them.

[Leslib]

Oh, the irony.

[JessWonderin]

hmmm . . . maybe she SHOULD read Josh's SITE!!!!!

[Diane Tucker]

Right when the New York Times if fighting for its financial life, trying to convince us that newspapers are a better source of information than the blogosphere, we learn that one of their top columnists gets her ideas from bloggers. As Jon Stewart might intone, "Awkward."

[ChelseaC]

Diane,
Indeed!

[emncaity]

What's "awkward" is your sloppiness: "...gest her ideas from bloggers." You have one example of one idea she apparently got from this blogger. Your statement obviously implies that she gets a substantial portion, or even nearly all, of her ideas from bloggers. ("I get my news from the New York Times." "Oh, just one item?" "What?")

Maybe it really does help to be trained as a journalist--but then, you were...

[BrotherOrchid]

her dog ate her homework ? (I just hate it when that happens)

[blueflag]

As much as I love MD's column (and I do), this is the negative result of lifting other people's ideas. One cannot expect others, especially non-writers, to credit their verbal statements. I hear things I've said coming back to me all the time, as if I'd never said it to the person and it was his (or her) brand new thought. Usually, it happens in the same conversation. It's annoying, to be sure. But it shows that it's best to stay with one's own original conclusions and certainly one's own specific language--i.e., even if your "friend" told you, you should not be quoting your friend verbatim. She should know this.

[tnlcallen]

I think it's unfortunate, and I'm no fan of Maureen Dowd, but a person who writes so often runs the risk of repeating something they read or hear. I for one am going to give her a pass on this one. She quickly admitted her mistake, and apologized. That's what adults do, they own up to their mistakes and take responsibility for their actions.

[JessWonderin]

"word for word" risk????

[ChelseaC]

Mistake? I don't buy it. It was intentional.

[PatinSarasota]

Intentional is too kind a word. If Maureen Dowd expects her readers to believe that her friend casually quoted the original comments word by word in a phone conversation, she has more contempt for her audience than I ever realized.

Dowd has been credited with the following quote:
"The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for."
"
Maureen,
Your readers deserve better than what you're giving them.

[BARBLS]

I can't stand her or her writing to begin with so this is topping on the cake. All her columns are witch hunts. The way she went after Hillary Clinton was vicious. She looks down on everyone. I am glad she is getting payback for this. She says she did not know it was Josh Marshall', but it was almost verbatim, I do not believe her.

[ReadyNow]

Mo Do's new column is out.....no mention of her "borrowed" paragraph. Wonder who wrote her May 20th column?

[goodog]

didn't take long for this story to make it to the bottom of page 3.

[CitizenFarmer]

Now if she does not pay her taxes, she will be qualified for a post in the Obama administration.

[iluvnews44]

Well, this will teach MD to publically chastise someone whose husband cheated on them and wants to write about it (never mind that this person is also dying of cancer!!)

[demrepub]

Is Dowd still employed by the Times?

[JohnnyE]

Certainly Marshall's idea wasn't original, I wonder where he got it from. Blog's are mostly about quickly passing around ideas that have been heard elsewhere. Should they deserve the same protections as copyrighted published works? Can the Common Wisdom be plagiarized? Should human genes be patented? They're both a product of nature. Certainly it's nice to attribute an original thought or a sequence of identifiable words if you know the source, but it should be remembered there's nothing new under the sun. Should we footnote everything we heard at the water cooler? If the idea was original or the writing of unusual artistic merit then he deserved recognition, but otherwise....

[jonnienohands]

You should look up definition of plagiarize! In addition she has admitted it was not her work, apologized to the original source and a correction has been posted. Why are you defending an intellectual crime after Mo Do has verified it as factual?

[KennethThomas]

Why do you think Marshall's comments aren't original? Try googling the phrase "old fashioned POW" that Dowd also lifted from his post and see what comes up.

[ChelseaC]

I guess Dowd would not dare smear Joe Biden again.
What a hypocrite.