Thursday, February 24, 2005

WBTV fires producer for plagarism

Mark WashburnTV/Radio Writer
WBTV fired a news producer for plagarism this week after discovering a report on Monday's 5:30 p.m. newscast contained two sentences copied verbatim from a story in Sunday's Charlotte Observer.
"It was a very short story," said Dennis Milligan, Channel 3's news director. "Two of the three sentences in the piece were directly copied."
The story, about development in Cabarrus County, was published in Sunday's Cabarrus Neighbors section and available online on charlotte.com. The script, read by anchor Tonia Bendickson, included the first paragraph of the story, written by Observer reporter Ronnie Glassberg.
Milligan said Wednesday he learned about the verbatim duplication when Scott Verner, editor in the Observer's Concord bureau, called to complain about the lack of attribution after hearing Glassberg's story read on the newscast.
"We have zero tolerance for that kind of absolute breach of ethics," said Mary MacMillan, Channel 3's vice president and general manager. The station planned to air an apology to its viewers and the newspaper in its 6 p.m. newscast Wednesday.
"We appreciate them treating it as a serious matter, as do we," said Rick Thames, editor of The Observer.
Saying it was a personnel matter, WBTV would not identify the producer responsible for the story, but a memo to newsroom staff said the person had been fired. Producers work behind the scenes, directing reporters and photographers, assembling scripts and organizing the newscasts.
Milligan said that in the wake of The New York Times plagarism scandal last year, he issued a memo to the news staff reminding them "in no uncertain terms that WBTV would not tolerate any ethical lapse." Milligan said no similar case has been investigated during his three years at the station.


TheantiMedia says. If we really fired someone everytime they used information from a newspaper there would be no news to report because everyone would be fired!!

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