As Wood and Smith discuss in chapter 9 of their book anyone can place anything they want on the internet these days, prime example is Wikipedia.com a worldwide information based website where the information is posted by anyone and everyone. I found an article online that talks about writer Jacqueline Gonzalez who was a columnist at the San Antonio Express, and she got caught using information from Wikipedia without citing her sources; therefore she was a victim of plagiarism. Besides the fact that she got caught using someone else work without crediting them which as we all know is a crime in itself as a professional reporter she should have known better then to take information that had been published by someone who could have been making everything up! Other people rely on her information to be reliable and credible and using information from Wikipedia isn’t either of those qualities. Even if she hadn’t of gotten caught for plagiarism but I found out that my reporter was reporting information from that website I would stop reading her articles immediately. Apparently her former employer felt the same way because before the San Antonio Express could fire Jacqueline she decided to resign herself, because she saw what was coming. “Nothing is more important than the trust of our readers,” said news editor Robert Rivard, which as a reader and a customer that was exactly the same way that I felt. You would think that someone who got fired for her job because of plagiarism would have learned her lesson, clearly she didn’t because not too long after Jacqueline was caught plagiarizing again for a column in Watchdog.
I totally agree with the punishment handed out to Jacqueline, I think that is totally wrong of her to do, especially in the profession she was in. Every job has rules, and the biggest one in the reporting world is that you always have to cite your sources! She had learned that since her first reporting class in high school! With the internet becoming as big as it has, it is hard to not use such a powerful information source. There are so many reasons of why people are drawn to the internet, the first one being the overload of information, and the second being the accessibility. No longer do people have to take the time to go to the library and look up books and journals for the same information that is only a click away. There is no way to regulate what is put on the internet, and that is part of the reason it is so amazing because you can find anything! However at the same time that is what can make it such a dangerous tool. Wood and Smith talk about how great the internet is because it directly relates to the right of free speech everyone is promised by living in the US. The only way to control the internet is if everyone were to take it upon themselves to not take information off of non credible cites. Also people need to make sure that they cite all of their sources, that way the information can always be tracked back to the source and people can determine whether the site is reliable to use or not.
More plagiarism…sometimes it amazes me at what people try to get away with. Is it just the plain ease of plagiarizing through the use of the internet, or is it plain laziness, or what?
Anyways, the Internet makes it very easy to plagiarize. I read a while back that students could even buy essays online. Not quite the same, but just as dirty.
Hello,
What a story, how could a reporter go onto the internet and use wikipedia as a source for their information without giving credit? Many of us rely on the news to give us un biased correct information and that is compromised when reporters are just looking things up online without any confirmation if the info is correct or not. It was probably best that the woman resigned from her position because there is no need for that in the news world.
The internet is very accessible these days and as our reading pointed out anyone can say anything on the internet. That is why we all need to pay attention to what we read and what we see o the internet and always cite our sources when getting that information. I can remember what it was like going to the library to get information from books and such. It was very time consuming and not as easily understood as going online and getting information.
Jared
hmm well you would think that Jacqueline would have learned the first time!
Plagiarism is a very problematic and immoral act to do. Stealing other peoples work is just as bad as stealing a material possession of their–maybe even worse. But why do people plagiarize? Are they too self-conscious about their own thoughts and ideas that they have to use others? Anyway, it’s obviously becoming an even bigger problem with the internet having so much free information available online.