Times Business Reporter Accused of Plagiarism Is Said to Resign

We all know what plagiarism is. From the first time I was assigned a tiny research project in 3rd grade until now, my freshmen year in college, I have been told not to plagiarize and the serious consequences if one were to do so. If you are like me you have also been told over and over again what plagiarism is and how serious it is. Perhaps The Times reporter, Zachery Kouwe was never taught about plagiarism in school..Perhaps he was not as fortunate as the rest of us..

The New York Times reported in an article on Feb, 16, 2010 that Times Business reporter, Zachery Kouwe, was accused of plagiarizing “several portions of articles resigned from the newspaper Tuesday.” The plagiarized article was written on Feb 5th and since then editors of the Times have found portions of Kouwe’s article identical or close to identical to another online article posted just hours before his “own.” Upon further investigation it was found that Kouwe had copied numerous passages from the Wall Street Journal and the Reuters’ articles and used them in his blog posts and articles. After attending a meeting regarding possible disciplinary actions against Kouwe, he resigned. The article ends with the following quote by Times spokesperson, Diane McNulty, “The Time has dealt with this, as we said we would in our Editor’s Note, consistent with our standards to protect the integrity of journalism.”

The first idea that comes to my mind after reading this article is…what was he thinking?!

Plagiarism can lead to suspension in high school, expulsion, fines, and a pretty cloudy future in college, and even worse in the professional world. An elite newspaper like the New York Times relies on its high scale reputation to sell copies to consumers. People purchase the newspapers and expect to find articles that are accurate and original. An incident like this could dramatically hurt this reputation. In addition to hurting the Times reputation, stories like this may cause the medium’s financial contributors (government, advertisers, and consumers) to wonder if they want to invest and buy something of this quality. Media has a huge affect on society and readers rely on reporters to tell correct information that is original. Will this little incident affect Times in the long run? Time will only tell.

Would you renew your subscription with the New York Times after this?
Ideas? Thoughts?