Well, That Was Quick
Julian Sanchez | March 24, 2006, 5:00pm
Under a heavy barrage of plagiarism charges, The Washington Post's new conservablogger, Ben Domenech, has resigned.
Addendum: Blogger DHinMI at Daily Kos is annoyed by an omission in the post's announcement of Domenech's deparrture:
He just CAN. NOT. mention that it wasn't just generic "media outlets" that "surfaced these allegations." (And "surfaced these allegations?" What kind of crappy writing is that?) No, Brady can't admit that some bloggers and readers put in more due dilligence in vetting their quota hires than did the Washington Post. Like I said, crony journalism.
But that's not entirely fair to the
Post: The truth at the core of much often-tiresome blog triumphalism is precisely that the
Post probably
couldn't have vetted anyone as effectively as a blogospheric swarm. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I assume it was something like this: When Domenech got hired, hundreds or even thousands of bloggers and blog readers began looking back at his previous work. Maybe someone saw a phrase they thought looked familiar and started Googling. Once the first instance of apparent plagiarism was spotted and blogged, thousands more began looking through that same body of writing, perhaps with each individual only checking a few pieces, a few phrases at a time. The same task would have taken a committed body of researchers days, but because the task was what
Net theorist Yochai Benkler would call highly modular and granular—capable of being broken up into highly fine-grained microtasks—a distributed swarm of bloggers was able to accomplish it incredibly quickly, turning up many more instances in a matter of hours. The blogosphere's virtues on this front are not necessarily the
Post's defects, any more than it's a problem with the blogosphere
per se that it's less well suited to producing intensive, sustained investigative reporting on stories that aren't similarly modular and granular. They're different kinds of information systems with different comparative advantages.
Second Addendum: Domenech has a post up at RedState (where, incidentally, some of his cobloggers have been having a GodwinFest) attempting to explain some of the pieces he's accused of having plagiarized. On one, a music review for National Review Online, he gets a pretty clear pass since it turns out that he was the author of the un-bylined piece he was charged with ripping off. He says that the similarities between this New York Press article and this Washington Post piece are just the result of both reporters having attended the same press conference and written down the same description of events; I figure we should probably give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.
Then we get to this piece written for William and Mary's college paper, largely lifted from P.J. O'Rourke's Modern Manners. Domenech says he'd gotten O'Rourke's O.K. to run a piece "inspired by" the humorist's take on "real parties." The problem here is, even if that's true, plagiarism isn't just wrong because it rips off the original writer; it's wrong because it deceives readers—and there's nothing I see on the student paper page to indicate to the reader that any part of the piece was written by anyone other than Ben Domenech. As for other suspect pieces that appeared in The Flat Hat, Domenech says the plagiarized material was inserted by an unscrupulous editor. Well... possible. I'd be interested to learn this editor's name and current whereabouts; it would be a very strange case if it were true.
But what's particualrly suggestive—and what makes me suspicious of this story about the nefarious editor—is that we get no attempt to explain the clear similarities between this National Review Online review of the movie Final Fantasy and a Cox News Service review of the same film, credited to one Steve Murray. Nexis confirms that the latter review ran first. Unless Domenech's nemesis from The Flat Hat somehow wormed his way into the NRO offices or "Steve Murray" is one of Domenech's pseudonyms, that one sure seems hard to explain. And if that's a genuine case... well, as I said, I'd like to hear from this cut-and-paste-happy editor from William and Mary.
Last One: I'll second Ezra Klein's suggestion here: If the Post is looking for a young socially conservative blogger, Ross Douthat (who, full disclosure, I know socially slightly) would be a good pick if he'd be willing to do it.
Frank_A | March 26, 2006, 1:06am | #
Just found this on National Review, they're bluntly disassociating themselves from Ben's work. Ouch:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/06_03_19_corner-archive.asp#093312
A MESSAGE TO OUR READERS [The Editors]
As the previous links on the matter mention, at least one of the pieces Ben Domenech is accused of having plagiarized was a movie review for National Review Online. A side-by-side comparison to another review of the same film speaks for itself. There is no excuse for plagiarism and we apologize to our readers and to Steve Murray of the Cox News Service from whose piece the language was lifted. With some evidence of possible problems with other pieces, we're also looking into other articles he wrote for NRO.
UPDATE: More here.
......................................
DOMENECH, CONTINUED [The Editors]
As we mentioned in our earlier editor's note, staff here at National Review Online are going through all of the pieces Ben Domenech has written for us (the most recent of which appears to have been published in 2002) in light of questions raised in the wake of the debut of his "Red America" blog this week on the Washington Post's website (from which he has since resigned).
Our review unfortunately raises questions about several other pieces besides the one we apologized for this morning.
To give you a feel for what our staff has found:
• In a movie review of Pay It Forward on the weekend of October 21-22, 2000, Domenech writes:
…Pay It Forward is exactly the type of film that the casual moviegoer will love, and critics will pan.
In a October 18, 2000, review of Pay It Forward on "the flick filosopher" website, writer Maryann Johanson writes:
This is a film the studio knows casual moviegoers will love and critics will not…
Here's more from the same review. Ben Domenech writes:
Most kids come up with plans to put up recycling flyers or clean up the neighborhood, but Trevor's idea astounds even his teacher…
Maryann Johanson writes:
Most kids come up with plans to post flyers about recycling and such, but Trevor's brilliantly simple idea astounds even his teacher…
Domenech:
…when the naively youthful Osment is asked whether the plan might be 'overly utopian,' relying as it does on an act of faith in 'the goodness of people,' the boy's wonderfully optimistic reply is, 'So?'
Johanson:
Eugene wonders if the plan might be 'overly utopian,' relying as it does on 'an act of faith in the goodness of people,' and Trevor's naively childlike and wonderfully optimistic reply is, 'So?'
Here are two graphs from the two pieces side-by-side. Domenech:
But it isn't the script that makes this movie: it's the performances. Helen Hunt, Osment's alcoholic mother, may not have the chemistry with Spacey we're supposed to believe she has (the boy tries to set the two of them up), but she is very believable as a woman just barely holding herself together. Watching Hunt, you see what Julia Roberts was trying to do with her role in Erin Brockovich; bottle blond, with a cheap perm and garish makeup, Hunt lets herself look like hell, and pulls off an award-worthy study in trailer trash. Jay Mohr (Jerry Maguire, Go) is smarmy, charming, and pulls it off like only he (and maybe Bill Murray) can. Jim Caviezel is great as always, with a relatively small role as a timid, shy vagrant. And Jon Bon Jovi, who's only in three scenes, seems to have a knack for playing drunk jerks.
Johanson:
The only thing that makes Pay It Forward worth seeing, in fact, are marvelous performances by the entire cast. Helen Hunt may not have the chemistry with Spacey we're supposed to believe she has (Trevor tries to set up his mom with his teacher), but she is depressingly believable as a woman just barely holding herself together, and, in full-on Erin Brockovich mode -- bottle-blond, with a cheap perm and garish makeup -- she dares to let herself look like hell. Jay Mohr does smarmy charm better than anybody since Bill Murray. Jim Caviezel is starting to prove himself a chameleon, disappearing into his timid, shy vagrant.
Domenech says that Pay It Forward has an "inexcusably exploitative ending."
Johanson says the movie is ruined by its "inexcusably exploitive ending."
The Pay It Forward review is the worst of what we've found.
We’ve also found some smaller examples.
• In a review of 3000 Miles to Graceland (February 24-25, 2001, "NRO Weekend"), Domenech writes of Kurt Russell's "studded good-guy white jumpsuit."
Jane Sumner, writing in the Dallas Morning News on January 22, 2001, talks about Russell's "studded good-guy white Elvis jumpsuit."
Domenech, again, in his 3000 Miles to Graceland review writes: "…Russell, he kicked Elvis Presley in the shins in his film debut (It Happened at the World's Fair, in 1963)…"
Sumner writes: "Kurt kicked The King in the shins in It Happened at the World's Fair (1963)…"
• In a review of a Wallflowers CD appearing on the October 28-29, 2000, edition of "NRO Weekend," Domenech writes:
Dylan's songs are rich with images and anecdotes, telling tragic stories of romance on its painful last gasps; stories of mourners and murderers, sons who've been told they'd never amount to anything, and "flowers that bloom dead."
In a Rolling Stone review on October 3,2000, Tom Moon writes: that the songs on the CD are "accounts of romance that is not quite dead but on its painful last gasps."
You get the idea. Put alongside other pieces that we're looking at and that have been linked to elsewhere in the blogosphere, it's hard not to conclude there was something amiss.
We're still looking. And again apologize to our readers that this ever happened on our site.
Posted at 08:27 PM
Frank_A | March 26, 2006, 1:06am | #
Just found this on National Review, they're bluntly disassociating themselves from Ben's work. Ouch:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/06_03_19_corner-archive.asp#093312
A MESSAGE TO OUR READERS [The Editors]
As the previous links on the matter mention, at least one of the pieces Ben Domenech is accused of having plagiarized was a movie review for National Review Online. A side-by-side comparison to another review of the same film speaks for itself. There is no excuse for plagiarism and we apologize to our readers and to Steve Murray of the Cox News Service from whose piece the language was lifted. With some evidence of possible problems with other pieces, we're also looking into other articles he wrote for NRO.
UPDATE: More here.
......................................
http://corner.nationalreview.com/06_03_19_corner-archive.asp#093326
DOMENECH, CONTINUED [The Editors]
As we mentioned in our earlier editor's note, staff here at National Review Online are going through all of the pieces Ben Domenech has written for us (the most recent of which appears to have been published in 2002) in light of questions raised in the wake of the debut of his "Red America" blog this week on the Washington Post's website (from which he has since resigned).
Our review unfortunately raises questions about several other pieces besides the one we apologized for this morning.
To give you a feel for what our staff has found:
• In a movie review of Pay It Forward on the weekend of October 21-22, 2000, Domenech writes:
…Pay It Forward is exactly the type of film that the casual moviegoer will love, and critics will pan.
In a October 18, 2000, review of Pay It Forward on "the flick filosopher" website, writer Maryann Johanson writes:
This is a film the studio knows casual moviegoers will love and critics will not…
Here's more from the same review. Ben Domenech writes:
Most kids come up with plans to put up recycling flyers or clean up the neighborhood, but Trevor's idea astounds even his teacher…
Maryann Johanson writes:
Most kids come up with plans to post flyers about recycling and such, but Trevor's brilliantly simple idea astounds even his teacher…
Domenech:
…when the naively youthful Osment is asked whether the plan might be 'overly utopian,' relying as it does on an act of faith in 'the goodness of people,' the boy's wonderfully optimistic reply is, 'So?'
Johanson:
Eugene wonders if the plan might be 'overly utopian,' relying as it does on 'an act of faith in the goodness of people,' and Trevor's naively childlike and wonderfully optimistic reply is, 'So?'
Here are two graphs from the two pieces side-by-side. Domenech:
But it isn't the script that makes this movie: it's the performances. Helen Hunt, Osment's alcoholic mother, may not have the chemistry with Spacey we're supposed to believe she has (the boy tries to set the two of them up), but she is very believable as a woman just barely holding herself together. Watching Hunt, you see what Julia Roberts was trying to do with her role in Erin Brockovich; bottle blond, with a cheap perm and garish makeup, Hunt lets herself look like hell, and pulls off an award-worthy study in trailer trash. Jay Mohr (Jerry Maguire, Go) is smarmy, charming, and pulls it off like only he (and maybe Bill Murray) can. Jim Caviezel is great as always, with a relatively small role as a timid, shy vagrant. And Jon Bon Jovi, who's only in three scenes, seems to have a knack for playing drunk jerks.
Johanson:
The only thing that makes Pay It Forward worth seeing, in fact, are marvelous performances by the entire cast. Helen Hunt may not have the chemistry with Spacey we're supposed to believe she has (Trevor tries to set up his mom with his teacher), but she is depressingly believable as a woman just barely holding herself together, and, in full-on Erin Brockovich mode -- bottle-blond, with a cheap perm and garish makeup -- she dares to let herself look like hell. Jay Mohr does smarmy charm better than anybody since Bill Murray. Jim Caviezel is starting to prove himself a chameleon, disappearing into his timid, shy vagrant.
Domenech says that Pay It Forward has an "inexcusably exploitative ending."
Johanson says the movie is ruined by its "inexcusably exploitive ending."
The Pay It Forward review is the worst of what we've found.
We’ve also found some smaller examples.
• In a review of 3000 Miles to Graceland (February 24-25, 2001, "NRO Weekend"), Domenech writes of Kurt Russell's "studded good-guy white jumpsuit."
Jane Sumner, writing in the Dallas Morning News on January 22, 2001, talks about Russell's "studded good-guy white Elvis jumpsuit."
Domenech, again, in his 3000 Miles to Graceland review writes: "…Russell, he kicked Elvis Presley in the shins in his film debut (It Happened at the World's Fair, in 1963)…"
Sumner writes: "Kurt kicked The King in the shins in It Happened at the World's Fair (1963)…"
• In a review of a Wallflowers CD appearing on the October 28-29, 2000, edition of "NRO Weekend," Domenech writes:
Dylan's songs are rich with images and anecdotes, telling tragic stories of romance on its painful last gasps; stories of mourners and murderers, sons who've been told they'd never amount to anything, and "flowers that bloom dead."
In a Rolling Stone review on October 3,2000, Tom Moon writes: that the songs on the CD are "accounts of romance that is not quite dead but on its painful last gasps."
You get the idea. Put alongside other pieces that we're looking at and that have been linked to elsewhere in the blogosphere, it's hard not to conclude there was something amiss.
We're still looking. And again apologize to our readers that this ever happened on our site.
Posted at 08:27 PM
