A Plagiarism Explanation Worse Than the Plagiarism

D Magazine is a monthly publication that has been a staple of the Dallas-Fort Worth area for nearly fifty years. As such, it was surprising when, last week, they took time out on their website to call out plagiarism of their work.

In a short article by Tim Rogers, the paper alleged that another Dallas-focused publication, VoyageDallas, had copied a story they published in 2018 about MoMo Italian Kitchen and republished it verbatim in an un-bylined post.

Rogers, who is also the editor of D Magazine, mocked the plagiarism saying that it was a “a bit too inclusive” for his taste and wondered if they operate similarly in other citites.

The VoyageDallas article, which was published in 2020, was presented as an interview with the restaurant’s owners, Wende Stevenson and Aaron Gross. However, as a screenshot of the article confirms, it was nearly a word-for-word copy of the original piece.

Then, shortly after D Magazine posted their allegations, the article on VoyageDallas went offline. It was then the story took something of a strange turn. According to an update posted two days later, VoyageDallas got in touch with D Magazine and explained the situation in more detail.

According to Mayank, one of the site’s founders, the article was actually written by Stevenson and Gross themselves and they had signed an agreement certifying that they had all the rights to the work. He further clarified that the subjects, not reporters on his staff, ultimately control what is in the article.

However, that doesn’t actually make the situation much better. If anything, it’s actually worse. Rather than VoyageDallas having a problem with an unnamed rogue reporter, they have a systemic issue with the way they obtain and present information.

However, it’s a problem that is all-too-common on the internet and is likely to continue to get more prominent as newsrooms continue to try to do more with less.

You Do Get How That’s Worse, Right?

On the surface, it might seem as if it’s better for VoyageDallas to put the blame on the subjects of the article, there’s one major problem with that: Their names weren’t anywhere on the article.

The article ran without a byline so the only name affixed to it was VoyageDallas. As such, any reader that comes across that article has the reasonable assumption that the article was written by a member of VoyageDallas’ staff, not by someone outside the company and certainly not by the subjects themselves.

While VoyageDallas may not have known that the article was originally written by D Magazine, they definitely knew that it wasn’t written by them. Yet, they presented the article as if it were or, at the very least, did nothing to dissuade that impression on the article itself.

This raises questions not just about authorship, but about journalism. An article written by the subject of that article is not a news piece, it is a press release. The expectation is that a news article is written by an impartial journalist that at least tries to independently verify facts of the story and consider all sides of it.

When press release content is used in a news article, the best practice is to clearly cite it and indicate that it comes from an inherently biased source. Though the rules are sometimes more flexible when dealing with feature pieces, such as this one, it’s still a big leap to run what is essentially a press release and not indicate that it wasn’t written by the publication.

To give an example, even when publishing unethical lists of “Best Essay Writing Services”, the Associated Press still makes it clear on the page itself that they are press releases, not original content.

But while I’m targeting VoyageDallas because of their recent public spat with D Magazine, the truth is that they are far from alone. What they’re doing is, if anything, part of a growing and very disturbing trend of blending press releases with news publication.

The Growing Problem Press Release Plagiarism

To be clear, press release plagiarism is nothing new. It’s been an issue for as long as there has been a press and organizations that seek to manipulate it. We’ve seen it many times over, it played a major part in the downfall of Jonah Lehrer in 2012 and it is one of the most common types of plagiarism in journalism.

One reporter even sued his former employer after he was fired for press release plagiarism, alleging that it was such common practice that the paper’s firing was defamatory.

However, over the past decade, many reporters have become more reliant on press releases and other content provided by the subject. The reason is simply because newsrooms are getting smaller and being tasked with producing more content. Reporters that, at one point, might have only done a couple of stories per week are now tasked with doing multiple per day.

Shortcuts often become necessary and one of the first to be taken is the use of press releases in news content. While this can be fine as long as the content is appropriately attributed, it raises serious ethical issues if a reporter or a publication is treating the words as if they came from their own hands.

Poynter, an organization that focuses on ethics in journalism, has a great guide for ethical use of press releases. However, as that article shows, views on the ethics of press release usage vary wildly, making it important for publications to set their standards.

That, in turn, brings us back go VoyageDallas. They likely see no harm in reusing press releases this way, especially since the authors release the content to them specifically for this kind of use. However, there are two victims of plagiarism and they are still misleading their audience, even if they don’t intend to.

Press release plagiarism is often seen as a victimless crime. However, it still robs the audience, who consumes marketing material under the guise of journalism all because of the trust they have in that publication.

Bottom Line

In their FAQs, VoyageDallas does shine some light on their practices. There they say the following:

We publish people’s stories in their own words, even when there are grammatical issues because we believe it’s important to highlight that not all successful people sound the same, have flawless writing skills, etc.

VoyageDallas FAQs

In short, they admit that they publish the work from their subjects and don’t edit it. However, this buried in their FAQs and is not indicated on the articles themselves. There is no byline, no indication the content is a press release and no indication that the subject is the author on the article itself.

What makes it interesting is that the section of the FAQ to feature the quote above is “Authenticity over polish”

For a work to be authentic, it must include clear attribution. It must be abundantly clear who wrote the article and why they wrote it. Otherwise, it’s just confusion for the 99% of visitors that simply read the article and never see the FAQ. They will likely never know the piece wasn’t written by VoyageDallas’ staff.

If nothing else, this current approach brings problems to VoyageDallas. When D Magazine called them out for plagiarism, they had no idea the piece was written by the subjects so they named and shamed VoyageDallas. In short, not being clear about who wrote the piece also means that VoyageDallas bears the reputation harm for any misdeeds done by their writers.

Clear attribution isn’t just important for the audience, it can help save the publication a great deal of headache, especially when appropriating outside material.