The recent scandal surrounding Jonah Lehrer’s questionable journalistic practices leaves much to be considered. Near the top of the list: Why don’t Canadian publications take self-plagiarism as seriously as American ones do?
Even before it was learned that he’d fabricated a Bob Dylan quote, much had been made of Jonah Lehrer’s self-plagiarism. Brought to light by Michael Moynihan, it was said to demonstrate serious ethical and professional lapses, if nothing else.
So, how common is it? Is it an issue for all journalists, or just high-profile writers at The New Yorker?
Recycling certainly seems common enough for Maclean’s-writer-turned-Rush-Limbaugh-substitute Mark Steyn. And while Lehrer’s made-up musings on musical “inspiration” have little real import, Steyn’s questionable quotes involve some pretty inflammatory views. While he shouldn’t be blamed if his writings inspire Norwegian killers, shouldn’t he at least be held to the same standards as Lehrer?
Among many examples of Steyn’s self-plagiarism is this 2007 article containing passages identical to what appeared in Maclean’s.
New York Sun, 2007:
The fall 2005 rioters were “youths” (ie Muslims from the suburbs), supposedly alienated by lack of economic opportunity. The spring 2006 rioters were “youths” (ie pampered deadbeats from the Sorbonne), protesting a new law that would enable employers to terminate the contracts of employees under the age of 26 in their first jobs, after two years.
To which the response of most Americans is: you mean, you can’t right now? No, you can’t. If you hire a 20-year-old and take a dislike to his work three months in, tough: chances are you’re stuck with him till mid-century. In France’s immobilized economy, it’s all but impossible to get fired. Which is why it’s all but impossible to get hired. Especially if you belong to that first category of “youths” from the Muslim ghettos, where unemployment is around 40 to 50 per cent. The second group of “youths” — the Sorbonne set — protesting the proposed new, more flexible labor law ought to be able to understand that it’s both necessary to the nation and, indeed, in their own self-interest: they are after all their nation’s elite. Yet they’re like lemmings striking over the right to a steeper cliff — and, naturally, the political class caved in to them.
When most of us on this side of the Atlantic think of “welfare queens,” our mind’s eye conjures some teenage crack whore with three kids by different men in a housing project. But France illustrates how absolute welfare corrupts absolutely. These Sorbonne welfare queens are Marie Antoinettes: unemployment rates for immigrants? Let ‘em eat cake, as long as our pampered existence is undisturbed…
Maclean’s, 2006:
The fall 2005 rioters were “youths”(i.e. Muslims from the suburbs), supposedly alienated by lack of economic opportunity. The spring 2006 rioters are “youths”(i.e. pampered Sorbonne deadbeats), protesting a new law that would enable employers to terminate the contracts of employees under the age of 26 in their first jobs, after two years.
To which the response of most North Americans is: you mean, you can’t right now? No, you can’t. If you hire a 20-year-old and take a dislike to his work three months in, tough: chances are you’re stuck with him till mid-century. In France’s immobilized economy, it’s all but impossible to get fired. Which is why it’s all but impossible to get hired. Especially if you belong to that first category of “youths” from the Muslim ghettos, where unemployment is around 40 to 50 per cent. The second group of “youths” — the Sorbonne set — protesting the proposed new, more flexible labour law ought to be able to understand that it’s both necessary to the nation and, indeed, in their own self-interest: they are after all their nation’s elite. Yet they’re like lemmings striking over the right to a steeper cliff.
When most of us on this side of the Atlantic think of “welfare queens,” our mind’s eye conjures some teenage crack whore with three kids by different men in a housing project. But France illustrates how absolute welfare corrupts absolutely. These Sorbonne welfare queens are Marie Antoinettes: unemployment rates for immigrants? Let ‘em eat cake, as long as our pampered existence is undisturbed.
That same 2007 column also contains passages that appeared in the National Post (2002; the text for which is available here), The Telegraph (2005), and Steyn’s America Alone (2006), like this three-peat, where different endings are tacked onto the same story:
The Telegraph, 2005:
… a fellow in Marseilles is being charged with fraud because he lived with the dead body of his mother for five years in order to continue receiving her pension of 700 euros a month.
She was 94 when she croaked, so she’d presumably been enjoying the old government cheque for a good three decades or so, but her son figured he might as well keep the money rolling in until her second century and, with her corpse tucked away under a pile of rubbish in the living room, the female telephone voice he put on for the benefit of the social services office was apparently convincing enough. As the Reuters headline put it: “Frenchman lived with dead mother to keep pension.”
That’s the perfect summation of Europe: welfare addiction over demographic reality. Think of Germany as that flat in Marseilles, and Mr Schröder’s government as the stiff, and the country’s many state benefits as that French bloke’s dead mum’s benefits …
In America Alone (page 112-113), the same anecdote ends with …
That’s the perfect summation of Europe: welfare addiction over demographic reality. Think of the European Union as that flat in Marseilles, and the Eutopian political consensus as the stiff, and lavish government largesse as that French guy’s dead mom’s benefits…
While in the New York Sun …
Think of France as that flat in Marseilles, and its economy as the dead mother, and the country’s many state benefits as monsieur’s deceased mom’s benefits.
As for questionable quotes, Steyn’s 2009 Maclean’s article, “We’re in the fast lane to polygamy,” claimed that legalizing gay marriage led to rampant polygamy. In addition to reusing swaths of a 2006 Western Standard column, Steyn also used an altered quote from the Toronto Star to bolster his argument:
This 2008 Toronto Star quote …
In the past five years, Hindy said he has officiated or ‘blessed’ more than 30 polygamous marriages; the most recent was two months ago.
… becomes this in Maclean’s:
Last year, Aly Hindy, a Scarborough imam, told the Toronto Star that he’d performed 30 polygamous marriages just in the last few weeks.
Changing “five years” to “a few weeks” certainly puts polygamy “in the fast lane,” but it appears to be Steyn’s foot on the accelerator. An error? Fabrication? We don’t know. Maclean’s editors refused to respond when it was brought to their attention. Perhaps they viewed it as a minor error. After all, at around the same time, they had refused to correct a preposterous claim that “10 million Finns died under Lenin” until they were embarrassed into it by Finland’s Helsingin Sanomat.
I think there’s some merit to suggestions that self-plagiarism goes hand in hand with sloppiness and other breaches. At any rate, even Lehrer’s minor lapses were taken seriously. As Slate’s Josh Levin wrote, The New Yorker “appended editors’ notes to Lehrer’s blog … Those notes acknowledge that ‘paragraphs,’ ‘portions,’ or ‘details’ originally appeared in writing that Lehrer had done elsewhere.”
But when apprised of Steyn’s duplication and errors, editors at Maclean’s did nothing. What does this say about standards at Canada’s national news magazine versus those in leading U.S. publications? Why are fabricated musings about Dylan’s creative juices enough to pull Lehrer’s book from the shelves, while false, inflammatory statistics (which could have an impact on gays and Muslims) are left to stand without correction?
Lehrer’s resignation, and the revelations of journalistic malpractice leading up to it, has apparently produced much “soul searching” south of the border. Rather than recreating “Fox News North,” perhaps this is one quality of American journalism Canada would do well to emulate.
Photo courtesy of Kris Krüg/PopTech, Flickr.
