Re: Editors note on Reporter's fraud

[David Goodman <dgoodman@princeton.edu>]

An excellent and responsible action, considerably more enlightened than
that of some scholarly publishers.

Like it or not, these fradulent articles -- and the fraud itself-- have
become part of the historical record. Certainly it will receive
considerable attention in schools of journalism; think what it wouyld be
like if the original material simply disappeared. The same would be true
in analogous cases in science.

The corrections will result in there being much less harm in the online
version than in print, because they are now an indelible part of the
newspaper.  It is not online which is the problem when material has to be
retracted--it's print!

Dr. David Goodman
Princeton University Library
and
Palmer School of Library & Information Science, Long Island University
dgoodman@princeton.edu

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>
Date: Saturday, May 10, 2003 11:29 pm
Subject: Editors note on Reporter's fraud

> NY Times 5/11
> http://nytimes.com/2003/05/11/pageoneplus/11EDIT.html
> In the Editor's note today:
> 
> Editors' Note
> 
> Ten days ago, Jayson Blair resigned as a reporter for The New York 
> Timesafter the discovery that he had plagiarized parts of an 
> article on April
> 26 about the Texas family of a soldier missing in Iraq. An article 
> on Page 1 today recounts a chain of falsifications and plagiarism that 
> unraveledwhen The Times began an inquiry into that Texas article." 
> ... Regarding
> database concerns the Editor indicated:
> 
> "In online databases that include copy from The Times, cautionary 
> noticeswill be attached to the faulty articles in coming days"