Anchor’s Final Goodbye Sparks Plagiarism Controversy

On Friday, June 19, KWQC morning anchor Dustin Nolan said goodbye to his Quad City audience. 

In an emotional 2-minute speech, he talked about how much the job meant to him, the importance of journalism to push people out of their bubbles and make them uncomfortable.

The speech struck a chord with many people and went viral on both social media and in the news. 

The speech also became politically controversial, with some sites falsely claiming that he had quit on air or that his words were an attack on his employer or journalism more broadly.

To be clear, he strongly denied that. Posting on his X account (formerly Twitter), he said that his departure had been planned for over a month and that he had no ill will toward anyone involved. He described it as a difficult but personal decision. He also noted that his wife and co-anchor, Jenna Jackson, would be staying with the station.

However, all the attention began to draw a different kind of scrutiny to the speech. Though, in the moment, it seemed deeply passionate and personal, some began to claim that the speech bore a close resemblance to a similar farewell speech from 2021. 

Many have even gone as far as to accuse Nolan of plagiarism.

But is that a fair accusation? We have to first start with the allegations themselves.

Understanding the Allegations

The allegations were first noted by the media watchdog group FTVLive. 

They center around a September 2021 speech given by sportscaster Dale Hansen. Hansen had worked for over 40 years in the area and was retiring from the Dallas station WFAA. In addition to being a sportscaster, he also hosted a recurring opinion segment on the station. 

In Nolan’s speech, he gave credit to his wife and co-anchor by saying, “If you don’t have a Jenna in your life, I suggest you find one. Because she makes dreams come true in every way another human can’t.”

Hansen, on the other hand, gave similar credit to Dannie Livingston, the man who gave him his first job in the industry. He said, “If you don’t have a Dannie Livingston in your life, I strongly encourage you to find one. He makes dreams come true.”

Nolan also concluded his speech by saying, “There will be no more TV tomorrows for me… Good day, and goodbye.”

Hansen ended his speech similarly saying, “There will be no more TV tomorrows for me… Goodnight, and goodbye.”

Both speeches also made similar references to taking people out of their bubbles and making them uncomfortable.

Nolan, for his part, acknowledged the issue, at least in private. According to a Daily Mail report, he reached out to Hansen to apologize and say that the similarities were unintentional. Hansen seems to have accepted the apology and said there was no “reason to doubt” Nolan.

Nolan also said that he grew up in Dallas and watched a great deal of Hansen’s work, including his farewell speech.

This leaves the story in an awkward place. On one hand, it seems as if the major issues have been resolved. On the other, there are some difficult questions that remain.

My Take

This story is incredibly frustrating. At first glance, it seems like this is a tempest in a teapot. Nolan has retired, Hansen has accepted his apology, and there doesn’t seem to be much for anyone to be upset about.

After all, even if we were to agree that this is a horrible journalistic sin, what are we going to do about it? There’s no one to punish, and the most direct victim doesn’t seem to feel too wronged. There is simply no one to champion and no one to punish.

But then we get to the second victim of plagiarism, the audience. This video went incredibly viral and has been seen at least a million times. It resonated with a lot of people, and much of that resonance was due to concerns about the current state of journalism.

So what happens to that message when it turns out that it was, at least in part, a work of plagiarism? That undermines much of the point Nolan was trying to make.

Yes, journalism is important. It needs to be a bastion of integrity and truth. It should be a place where people go to become informed, even if it makes them uncomfortable.

But part of that adherence to truth and integrity is citing sources and giving credit where it’s due. Much like academia, much of journalism is built on the work of others. Attribution not only gives credit but makes it possible to check the accuracy of what is being reported.

But then comes a third problem. There is no one standard of plagiarism. The audience ultimately has to decide for themselves what needs to be cited, when, and how. But Nolan wrote and gave this speech to his local audience. Though his station is a major one in the area, the Quad City region only has a population of about 467,000. Instead, it found an audience of millions.

Nolan did not intend this to be a national, let alone international, sensation. This blew up far beyond any of his wildest expectations.

Does this change anything? Probably not. But it is still important to remember the context in which the speech was written and delivered. Especially if the local audience would have viewed the situation differently.

Whether they would is a question that only they can answer.

Bottom Line

In many ways, this is the opposite of the story I covered yesterday involving Étienne Klein. There you had a national figure who had a whole career of plagiarism he’d managed to run from and is only now facing consequences for things in his distant past.

Nolan is a local figure who, by all accounts, has had a very ethical career who is now facing plagiarism allegations for the one time his work went international, his retirement speech. 

The main moral of this story is that, regardless of what you publish, you have to assume that it can go viral and can be seen by millions of people all over the world. Nolan may have thought that he was writing a farewell speech for his local audience, but that’s not what it became.

While I do believe him when he says that it wasn’t intentional, there is a lot of space between “not intentional” and “negligent.” His responsibility wasn’t to not plagiarize on purpose, but to not do it at all. He did fail that, at the worst possible time.

To make matters worse, I think his speech would have been improved if he had given a nod to Hansen. He was citing others who had helped and inspired him, Hansen should have been included in those ranks. It was a missed opportunity in every respect.

That said, I don’t want to be too hard on Nolan. This was a very difficult speech for him to write and one that is well outside of his comfort zone. Much as with the story of the Irmo mayor and the countless commencement speeches, when people step outside of what they are used to writing, plagiarism becomes more likely for a variety of reasons. This is especially true in high-pressure situations.

So my goal with this case is not to punish someone who has already left the industry, but to remind others of the importance of attribution and realizing that you can’t control what becomes viral. 

Treat everything you write as if it will be seen by the whole world.