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Feb 25, 2006
My Mistake

I have been contacted by Clark Stallings, conservative columnist for the Red & Black, regarding the post I made on October 13, 2005.

In the interest of an accurate historical record (and because I sincerely believe that this blog has all the social and political import of a ham sandwich), I am going to leave the post intact. I am only adding a disclaimer and a link to today's post, which I hope will clear up any misunderstandings by explaining the event in detail using nothing but verifiable facts.

Stallings wrote a column October 11 which compared a quote by Hillary Clinton to quotes by Hitler, Mussolini, and Khrushchev. A reader letter published October 12 drew attention to the fact that Stallings was comparing quotes used by other conservative writers. Notably, these quotes were compared by Neal Boortz on his "favorite quotes" page and referenced on his July 29, 2003 "Nuze" column.

If there was some sort of personnel issue at the Red & Black, it is clear that Stallings was NOT fired as I earlier reported, because his stories continue to be published. Obviously, as I am not privy to such proceedings, any gossip I dish out about HR at the Red & Black is based entirely on hearsay and kept around only for entertainment value.

As far as I know, the writer's position is that he did come across the quotes on the Neal Boortz website. I draw your attention to the R&B retraction:

The Clark Stallings column, “Hillary Clinton snubs the person,” which appeared in Tuesday’s edition of The Red & Black, compared quotes by Adolf Hitler, Nikita Krushchev, Benito Mussolini and Ayn Rand to a quote by Hillary Clinton.

These quotes were used in a similar way in a column written in 2002 by Neal Boortz.

Stallings, who is not an employee of The Red & Black, said he did not get the idea for his work from the column. He said he remembered the quotes, then used Neal Boortz’s Web site, www.boortz.com, where the quotes also appear, as a reference.

Stallings did not attribute this Web site in his column.

After reviewing the incident, The Red & Black has suspended Stallings from making submissions.

Now for some speculation. Obviously, Stallings is making submissions again. This indicates that he convinced somebody that he didn't realize copying quotes off of another commentator's website without a citation constituted plagiarism.

I suppose I can't prove that Stallings is capable of figuring out that copying minus attribution equals BAD -- but in my opinion, it doesn't matter. If, as the retraction indicates, he knew that Boortz had used the quotes, he should have cited him, and his failure to do so still amounts to plagiarism. To quote the anonymous contributor who drew this situation to our attention in the first place, "Oooh...shutdown."

BUT...

I still made a false statement. According to the Red & Black, Stallings never worked for them in the first place, and therefore could not be fired. He was, in fact, suspended.

My mistake.
Nick ::: 3:51 PM ::: 0 comments

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