THE HARTFORD COURANT GETS SLAPPED

Before I begin this post, let me just preface this by saying that I have the utmost respect for the two people that I know personally at the Hartford Courant, Jeff Cohen and Helen Ubinas. If anyone needs to be reminded, it was Jeff Cohen that originally broke the story regarding corruption in the Perez Administration. Cohen's story resulted in the States Attorney's Office beginning a full scale investigation that has resulted in the arrest of Perez and others. Helen Ubinas through her columns continues to identify all that is good with Hartford as well as the things that are wrong with Hartford (even though she threatened to punch me in the head Wednesday and then twittered how good it felt, it was a joke for those who have called wondering why she would do that). OK, so on with the story.

Recently, accusations of plagiarism have been made against the Hartford Courant. Apparently the Journal Inquirer of Manchester has been the most vocal in their criticism of the Courant. The claims seem to be that the Courant has been "ripping" stories from other media outlets and then publishing them in the Courant without crediting the original authors. In a strong release issued yesterday, the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) stated that the Courant's actions violated fundamental standards and amounted to "theft". The release from SPJ is below, the Journal Inquirer's story on the issue can be found at www.journalinquirer.com


*****UPDATE- at 5:31 PM today the Courant's Publisher posted an apology on their website, it can be viewed at this address- http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/hc-courant-apology-plagiarism-090309,0,1524843.story

SPJ Ethics Committee: Hartford Courant Violated Ethical Standards


9/2/2009

For immediate release:
9/2/2009

Contacts:
Kevin Z. Smith, SPJ President, (304) 367-4864, spjpresident@yahoo.com
Andy Schotz, Ethics Committee Chairman, lawngyland@aol.com



SPJ ETHICS COMMITTEE: HARTFORD COURANT
VIOLATED ETHICAL STANDARDS


INDIANAPOLIS – The Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics Committee released the following statement regarding the Hartford Courant’s recent admission of and apology for using other newspapers' stories without duly attributing credit. The statement issued by the committee is as follows:

The Hartford Courant has acknowledged using stories from other Connecticut newspapers recently without giving them credit. The director of content has apologized and vowed the mistake won't be repeated.

The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists plainly exhorts newspapers and journalists, "Never plagiarize." When a newspaper invests reporting and editing time to produce a story, that story should not be used by another outlet without permission and without informing readers who actually did the work.

Many media outlets aggregate information online, summarizing a story and then linking to the original. The Courant failed to carry the credit from its online version to its print version.

"However it happened, the Courant violated fundamental standards," said Andy Schotz, the chairman of SPJ's Ethics Committee. "This was theft."

Integrity and credibility, two of the most important values in journalism, demand that all media outlets be clear about the source of stories they did not produce. Failure to follow that guideline results in plagiarism, taking credit for someone else’s work, as it did in this case.

SPJ admonishes all media outlets to take special care so that proper attribution is given at all times – especially when working with multiple news delivery platforms. For help in making strong ethical decisions, please consult the Society’s Code of Ethics (www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp) or call SPJ’s Ethics Hotline at (317) 927-8000, ext. 208.

Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to a well- informed citizenry; works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists; and protects First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press. For more information about SPJ, please visit www.spj.org.


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