This is a shorter version of an article appearing on the Wardman Wire.
Plagiarism is an interesting game.
You can either rewrite the piece, find a bit more information, leave other bits out, and – if you’re the Daily Mail – reduce the reading age by a year or three.
Or you can acknowledge that the story came from somewhere else, and give a hat-tip for a nugget, or a small fee for an article.
Or you can try and ride both horses and end up sitting on your backside in the middle.
So, we have Exhibit A, from Dizzy Thinks:
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has a dedicated civil servant working on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012? Not particular shocking really, but there is an oddity.
According to an FoI release, one of the roles of this civil servant is the development of equalities impact assessment for the Queen’s celebratory bash. Why does a celebration for one person need an equalities impact assessment?
Mind you, as an eagle-eyed reader put to to me. Perhaps it’s because she’s (a) a woman, (b) a pensioner, (c) dependent on state benefits, and (d) married to an immigrant?
and Exhibit B, from the Daily Mail:
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has a dedicated civil servant working on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012. One of the roles of the civil servant is the development of an ‘equalities impact assessment’. Why does a Âcelebration for one person need an equalities impact assessment? Is it because she’s a woman, a pensioner, relies on the state for handouts — and is married to a foreigner?
The two are nearly the same, and it’s only an item in a Diary column, for heaven’s sake. A tip would cost about twenty pounds or a gift voucher, and an acknowledgement would cost nothing.
(Hat-tip: Dizzy).
[Update: re-edited]
Online Journalism Blog 
Let’s not forget that some of these distorting principles transpose to libellious reporting in that guilt-ridden rag:
Take a court case, cherry pick bits and pieces, do a hackneyed citing of sources, twist the story with hyperbolic, sneering or misleading scribbling that makes those you supposedly suspect look bad. Doesn’t matter if it’s a dismissed case, or one in which defendents were acquitted – its been done time and time again regardless.
More amorality points if those you victimize can’t afford to sue. Oh and Mr. Dacre the DM editor chairs the Press Complaints Commission: that’s not a conflict of interest…oh, no. Even if a citizen does get a settlement in court the damage is done; people you know read the article/s and being non-rich the likelihood of a frontpage apology remains unlikely.
As well-used as this phrase is; that and other papers knowingly ruin lives. The Daily Mail is amoral profiteering passively posturing as being of ethical weight, but so are others – the Mail just happens to be the biggest offender.
To get on topic…those who read the Eye’s ‘How Journalism Works’ know barely-concealed pilfering of pieces is dissapointingly common amongst all papers.
Pete, editor at Dirty Garnet.
Agreed :-).
M
Smart enough to spot a porn-spammer, darlin’.
Lovely post, thanks for taking the time to put your ideas down