A portrait of the blogger as a young plagiarist - smacked down by Conason

[TacticalPeek]

A portrait of the blogger as a young plagiarist

As a college student Ben Domenech lifted arts criticism; as a GOP henchman, he was accused of fabricating a Tim Russert quote. What was the Washington Post thinking?

By Joe Conason

March 24, 2006 | Does the Washington Post intend to maintain journalistic standards in the brave new blogosphere? Or are those standards incompatible with the Post company's ambitions for WashingtonPost.com?

Those questions arise from the Post's hiring of Ben Domenech -- best known as a founder of RedState.com, but also known as a Bush appointee, and the son of a Bush appointee, and as a contributor to National Review Online -- to write a daily blog on the newspaper's Web site. That decision by Post management has provoked much speculation about its motive for employing Domenech. Many observers surmise that Domenech was brought on to "balance" Dan Froomkin, the popular White House Briefing blogger on WashingtonPost.com whose skepticism and wit have provoked whining from the right -- and defensive reactions from certain Post reporters worried by accusations of "liberal bias" at the paper.

Media watchers will remember that the Post's internal thrashing over Froomkin's column led to the Web site's last major public stumble, when it removed blog comments from a post by the paper's ombudswoman, Deborah Howell. In their eagerness to appease critics on the right, the Post editors have blundered again. Whatever Froomkin's political views may be, he is a veteran reporter with a long résumé of newspaper jobs, including a decade at the Post. Domenech is a partisan operative with no newsroom experience of any kind, no training in journalistic standards and ethics, and nothing to guide him except home schooling and Republican reflexes.

Almost immediately the liberal blogosphere exploded with outrage over Domenech's hiring by the Post. But by Thursday bloggers had more than ideological reasons to oppose the Post's move, as Atrios, Daily Kos and other sites uncovered brazen examples of plagiarism by Domenech when he was writing for a student weekly at the College of William and Mary. Ironically, the young right-winger was apparently fond of Salon's arts criticism, at least, because he plagiarized film critic Stephanie Zacharek, and Mary Elizabeth Williams, writing about television.

more
http://salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/03/24/domenech_blog

[barbaraann]

1. The right has nobody who can meet journalistic standards.

NOBODY. The right only has lies and propaganda.

[pacalo]

4. Right. It's hard to defend someone when they're wrong.

And just as hard to dress up a pig & maintain credibility.

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. It seems the Washington Post has gone insane

First the Deb Howell incident and now this. WOW! If ever there was a need for a prominent newspaper to be subjected to an intervention, this is it. No outside force could ever have done so much damage to this paper's prestige than what those that currently work for The Post have done. Simply off the charts madness!

[glitch]

5. They're just modelling The New York Times.

"What, you think you're disgraced? Just watch us!" paraphrasing what they must be thinking.

[justgamma]

3. It sure seems like

a lot of these people learn the Republican way to lie, cheat and steal in college. Do they have classes in these subjects?

[TacticalPeek]

6. He even ripped off the WaPo itself! He'll be history in Friday's news dump

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_03_19_atrios_archive.html#114317221990978364


Poor thing.


:evilgrin:

[emulatorloo]

7. kick and nominating n/t