As my life tends to dictate, I often get involved in things that don't involve me.
For example, a few months ago I found an email from a friend and writing colleague in my inbox, which was the prelude to an international news story - transpiring in in my own back yard, so to speak.
The editor of a small community weekly newspaper in Chestermere, a bedroom community outside Calgary - where I live, was the subject of some scrutiny. My colleague had done a search out in his own domain, and discovered (to much dismay) that this editor had "allegedly" been copying his columns word for word - with a few minor alterations to make the features more Canadian.
The story sadly did not end there. This editor had "allegedly" been perhaps a little high on poutine and beaver dander - and had been purloining columns in their entirety from fellow newspaper columnists all across North America, and as far away as Australia/New Zealand. Just for fun, Google Steve Jeffrey Chestermere, and you can see just how far and wide this attracted attention in the industry.
Enter Dan once more yesterday - my new day job with the Canadian Diabetes Association brought me out to that lovely lakeside town to do a presentation for the city. I thought I would try and find a few copies of The Anchor, to see how this scandal may have affected the paper.
As it happens, I got my hands on a copy of the May 3, 2012 issue of the paper, and within there is a small article where the editor admits, apologizes and credits many of the writers that he had..."referenced" during the creation of the column that bore his own name.
In his defense, he explains that he had simply become busy, and exercised poor judgment.
I don't know if this is the penalty from all the attention after news broke, but even his resignation is about as authentic as his past columns. He is still listed on the website as the owner and editor - so he may have more time to work at those endeavours, now that he doesn't have to spend all that time online surfing for other's writers to "research" for inspiration.
And we wonder why newspapers are in such trouble...
Chow for now,
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4 comments:
I tried loading The Anchor's site today to see what they had reported about the recent tragic car accident on the Trans Canada. Upon Googling for the url, I found the news about Jeffrey. I'm a regular reader of The Anchor and was shocked, to say the least. It's also very bad form for the paper to have waited this long to report such relevant news about this scandal and his resignation. I guess they were all just too "busy".
Hey Anonymous!
I suppose that as a weekly, it may be hard to choose which stories have the most urgency, or will be of interest to readers by the time that issue hits the streets.
I agree, bad form, and still - even after admitting in print to using other people's work and taking credit for himself, this individual still doesn't seem to understand that students would be expelled for doing what he did.
I hope this isn't the end of the story....
A sad day indeed. It goes to show these days it seems anyone can say they are whatever they want you to believe. Even more sad, this guy would have gotten away with this if it had not been by chance that a newspaper columnist in California first found his words popping up in this little paper...disgusting!
Unfortunate to say the least
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