Daily News fires editor after Shaun King accused of plagiarism – CNN
On Tuesday, Daily News editor-in-chief Jim Rich told CNNMoney that the editor in question had “made a series of egregious and inexplicable errors,” and on at least three occasions “deleted attribution that made it appear passages from Shaun King’s columns were not properly credited.”
“These mistakes are unacceptable and the editor in question has been fired,” Rich said. The Daily News did not identify the editor, but a source with knowledge of the situation said it was editor Jotham Sederstrom.
Sederstrom could not be immediately reached for comment by CNNMoney.
Rich also said that “because of the recurring nature of this editor’s specific mistakes,” the Daily News was “currently reviewing all of the columns he edited.”
From: Daily News fires editor after Shaun King accused of plagiarism – Apr. 19, 2016
This is one weird story. I’m interested to see what else comes out.Report
What is so “weird” about this story? Several other journos as well as crazy uncle Joe Biden have had plagiarism problems.Report
According to the story, King didn’t plagiarize. His editor screwed up.Report
And likely intentionally so. It seems he was trying to discredit King.Report
Based on what evidence? Your liberal intuition that sees racism under every bed?Report
That the same editor repeatedly removed attributions and quotes, making a legitimately sourced story look plagiarized.
Who said anything about racism? Not me.
If I had to peg the editor’s motivations, I’d lean more towards disagreeing with King’s politics and/or tactics than racism.Report
It could also be he disliked King on a personal level, believed he was a fraud, or something along those lines.Report
Good point. It strikes me that King rubbed a number of people — including his ideological allies — the wrong way. Which also made him a target.Report
Based on having taken the time to read the brief excerpt of the piece being discussed. Not that I’d expect people to do that before entering the discussion, of course. That would be liberal elitism.Report
It is entirely possible that this was just an editorial screw up. It’s also possible that the editor in question purposefully removed the attribution so as not to have readers click away from the Daily News site. And it’s also entirely possible that some editor is now falling on his sword to save King.
Whatever is going on, dollars to donuts is has little to do with ideology (despite the claims of both King and his detractors) and is mostly about the business.Report
@j-r
I’d have a hard time believing clicking away was an issue if this behavior was limited to this particular editor and this particular writer. Though I suppose we’d need to see a much more thorough audit of the paper’s editing practices (and this editor in particular) to know if that was true.
To falling on his sword, it would seem like having draft versions of what King submitted could clear that up.Report
Exactly we don’t know whether it was or wasn’t. It’s not like it’s uncommon for a business to impose a bunch of performance metrics (get the “eyes on page” number up!) and then feign shock when it comes out that an employee used unethical methods to do it. You see this a lot in rogue trader scenarios (and throughout most of the subprime crisis).
And it doesn’t make much sense to set someone up in a way that is easily traceable back to you. If this editor ends up taking a job at the NY Post or Breitbart, then I’ll start to suspect ideological motives. Even the personal grudge story doesn’t make much sense. Why would you set someone up in a way that sets them up for eventual vindication?
Granted, this is all speculation on my part.Report
Good points all around. We’re pretty much all speculating at this point.Report
Speculation is great for improving your judgment. So long as you’re willing to go back and evaluate your forecasts and adjust your priors accordingly.
In this situation, my priors tell me that business trumps ideology. Or rather, ideology is what we fight about in the comments, but business is what drives decisions in the editorial offices.Report
@j-r
I do an activity with my kids sometimes wherein I’ll put a bunch of objects in a bag — say wooden blocks of different color or same colored papers in different shapes — and have them guess what’s in it based on clues. We shake the bag and listen. Reach inside and touch. They usually figure it out. But I’ll challenge them by showing just one of the item. “You all predicted wooden blocks. Here is one blue one. Do you think they’re all blue?” Most will say no because they’re accustomed to blocks coming in differeny colors. I’ll take out another blue. “Now what do you think?” Again and again. Some will change their answers, some won’t. All of which is fine. There isn’t a “right” answer. But I always ask them why. And that is where it gets interesting. My goal is not to make them perfect predictors (no such thing exists) but to help them develop an approach to speculation. How long and hard do you hold on to priors? What do you do with new information? How much new information is enough to change your priors?Report
“No, Tommy, it might sound like maracas, but it’s actually a rattlesnake. Never assume, Tommy!”Report
This turns out to be a good call — the editor fell on his own sword, claiming his own carelessness in formatting quotes that King had actually attributed.Report
Oh. I see @autolukos offered the same link already. Sorry, didn’t mean to step on your toes.Report
The thing that seems to be a fair criticism is that King takes large chunks of other peoples’ thoughts and works (with links, blockquote and attribution when formated properly), adds a comparatively minimal his 2 cents, and publishes that as original content under the banner of a well known media property.
So the problem is he’s bring the Daily News down to an SEO aggregation game player.Report
“So the problem is he’s bring the Daily News down to an SEO aggregation game player.”
That alone is worth firing him over.Report
That would actually count as “up”.Report
Billy Joel never had lyrics about Buzzfeed.Report
Where’s the fire, what’s the hurry about?
You’d better cool it off before you burn it out
Report
The editor speaksReport
That’s kind of anticlimactic.Report
Most things are, TBHReport
I was busy.
I forgot.
I didn’t know.
I wasn’t paying attention.
How much was this guy paid? He’s paid to pay attention. In my industry we call this negligence or incompetence-and it pretty much gets you fired.Report
I was under the impression that the editor was fired for this. I kind of buy the editor’s mea culpa that it was inadvertent, but your point that not making these kinds of mistakes is what that sort of editor’s job fundamentally is all about still stands.Report
Feeling pretty generous, I would be willing to give him an opportunity to redeem himself as an assistant copy editor at Ordinary Times at our usual pay rate.Report
@will-truman
Will, twist that knife!Report
Agreed. Send him the standard offer letter and request for references! (We probably shouldn’t expect a good one from the Daily News.)Report
At some point, people are gonna start calling him Teflon Shaun.Report