Did a Mainstream Journalist 'Borrow' From a Mere Blogger?

The MSM (MainStream Media) have been late to the dance in recognizing or even considering the effect of blogs on the, well, media. Bloggers, regardless of their experience and credentials, are often derided, and depicted as amateurish and ineffectual, and their acceptance has been slow in coming.

But our friend skippy tells us we may have a case of a Professional Writer™ who just may have, ahem, 'borrowed' from a blogger. Without attribution or credit.

The normally Right-wing crazy Patterico (a prosecutor in Los Angeles County; keep that in mind, would-be criminals) notices this little bit of coincidence:

Here's Joel Stein, November 2:

Just how easy is it for Coulter to offend someone? Would any words from her mouth do the trick? To test this theory, I developed the Ann Coulter Mad Libs.™

It's a good thing he used that ™ mark. He wouldn't want anyone to steal his concept.

Oh, look! Here's Media Bloodhound, October 18 (two weeks earlier):

In honor of Ann Coulter's influence on American media and politics, the Penguin Group (USA), in a joint venture with Ms. Coulter's Random House publisher, the Crown Publishing Group, is releasing a special edition of Mad Libs titled Ann Libs.

There's more at the Patterico post. And if you follow the links to both Media Bloodhound and Stein's posts, the similarities are indeed similar!

As skippy points out in an email to me:

granted, there are no copied jokes other than the premise, but the premise, prima facie, is identical to the point approaching zero percent of difference.

Indeed. While it doesn't seem to rise to the level of famous media plagiarists:

• New York Times reporter Jayson Blair plagiarized articles and manufactured quotations in stories, including stories regarding Jessica Lynch and the Beltway sniper attacks. He and several editors from the Times resigned in June 2003.[34]
• Conservative blogger Ben Domenech, soon after he was hired to write a blog for the Washington Post in 2006, was found to have plagiarized a number of columns and articles he'd written for his college newspaper and National Review Online, lifting passages from a variety of sources ranging from well-known pundits to amateur film critics. Domenech ultimately apologized and resigned.[37]
• In 1999, writer and television commentator Monica Crowley allegedly plagiarized part of an article she wrote for the Wall Street Journal (August 9, 1999), called "The Day Nixon Said Goodbye." The Journal ran an apology the same week. Timothy Noah of Slate Magazine later wrote of the striking similarities in her article to phrases Paul Johnson used in his 1988 article for Commentary called "In Praise of Richard Nixon".[33]

still, the coincidence is startlingly coincidental. As skippy suggests:

why not help out by emailing the latimes editors, their readers' representative, and/or joel stein, and pointing out this obvious bit of literary thievery?

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to!

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Comments

[ronnyg]

11:56 AM on 11/06/2007

Um, no, it IS irresponsible to speculate when you tell your readers to write to Joel Stein's paper.

I have written comedy professionally for a dozen years; yeah, the premise is the same, but it's not a deep premise. It is certainly possible that both parties came up with it (as a matter of fact, a few others on other blogs said they also had the same thought).

Point is, if you want to be RESPONSIBLE, confront Mr. Stein, weigh (and report) his response and THEN write the article before tarnishing his reputation.

I have not heard this type of charge leveled at Joel Stein before, so that might give him the benefit of the doubt.

What you have done here (and others elsewhere) is flat out wrong AND bad journalism.

A person only has one reputation; it takes very little to spoil it (and it doesn't matter whether or not you're a fan of Joel Stein).

Try to think about the effects on a person before you trash him (something Ms. Coulter is as far from doing as anyone).

[stillfresh]

04:12 PM on 11/05/2007

It's satire, get it? Her publisher creates Mad Libs. Joel Stein uses it against her? See?

[Bozwellian]

02:29 PM on 11/05/2007

...amongst so much, gotta' have a bit of wondering thrown in that just how many truly ORIGINAL "remarkings" are there really and what the chances of similars cropping up as in this particular Coulter whatevering...(far more of us out in these ordinary hinterlands really have failed to figure out what the obsession by MSM and ANnie have been all about for quite sometime and frankly, she is rather long in the tooth and still schlepping about in that little black dress flicking the blonded locks and given far more credit than she was ever due other than her skill at marketing for some bucks !!! She is rather well attuned to that sort of gig and is rather expertised in that hacking way...even has a publisher that buys her books back for giveaways...LOL, whatever. Her bones and mentality =rather a waste of space, but many already have such figured out and ignor what she spouts...MSM needs to catch up and let their spotlight be cast elsewhere, she is really quite an obnoxious bore !!!

[MysticInd]

11:58 AM on 11/05/2007

It is what it is!

Thanks Steven.

[dadw5boys]

07:59 AM on 11/05/2007

Well ANN COLTER steals from KKK MEMBERS all the time with her hate filled words.

[realitytrumpsbull]

01:48 AM on 11/05/2007

The blogosphere will EAT the MSM....

[TuffPosh]

09:15 PM on 11/04/2007

I hate to be in the position of saying anything non-damning about Joel Stein, however:

1. There's no proof he got the idea from that site, and in any case it's not such an outrageous idea that others probably haven't thought of it.
2. Stealing a joke isn't "plagiarism", which generally implies lifting whole parts of something else.
3. There are much more important things to discuss.