We have removed the name of the author of the column from the post and subsequent comments due to concerns of how the issue may affect the author’s employment prospects. We never had any intention of harming the student by publishing the editor’s note and we apologize for any undue hurt the note may have caused.
—The Senior Editorial Board
Wednesday evening I was alerted to a comment on a column in the opinion section of The Daily Californian, alleging that the article was “almost word-for-word” from a post on another website.
The columnist was hired Sept. 7 as the Wednesday columnist for the opinion section at the Daily Cal. This was the writer’s first piece for the newspaper.
The piece “But you looked different on Facebook …” had already been published on the blog Adios Barbie almost a year ago, and the columnist submitted it, almost verbatim, as one of their writing samples in their application to the Daily Cal.
The Daily Cal applications website instructs opinion department applicants to submit “two original, unpublished columns,” and it is custom for the opinion page editors to publish at least one of the original clips submitted by hired columnists.
We trusted that the columnist had followed the application instructions and that the work produced was original. The writer did not realize that submitting a piece that they had published elsewhere meant that they were submitting unoriginal work. We are at fault for not asking enough questions and properly screening previous work while considering the applicant.
In this case, the author presented the column as original work for the Daily Cal when, in fact, the work was lifted from a previous post that they had written for another organization. Regardless of the fact that they were the author of both renditions, the reproduction of content without disclosing the existence of the original piece is something the Daily Cal considers unethical.
All content produced for the Daily Cal by our writers is owned by the Daily Cal, and it is against our policy to publish unoriginal content. We do not tolerate plagiarism or self-plagiarism in any form and hold ourselves to the highest standards of journalistic integrity.
The column has since been removed, and the columnist will no longer write for the Daily Cal.
In addition to the Daily Cal’s processes for name-checking and fact-checking during editing, all editorial departments will now scan articles for plagiarism to ensure that all of the our content is original.
If you have any questions or concerns please email me at [email protected]
Stephanie Baer is the editor in chief and president.
Comment Policy
Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. The Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regard to the readers, writers and contributors of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Click here to read the full comment policy.
Comment posted after the author was contacted from the Bay Area News Group:
Stephanie Baer, you probably couldn’t even pay her to return to the
Daily Cal now. Ms. Baer, you’ll probably never get further in the
journalism industry than your editor position at your shitty Daily Cal.
Enjoy your power-tripping and bullying while you can. Meanwhile, I’m
sure the author will benefit from this incident and will go on to
bigger and better things.
you really have nothing to do can we move on please? Are you the author’s lawyer or what
lol, nice job making accusations. Are you Ms. Baer or what?
I’m sure Ms.Baer has much more important things to do, and would not lower herself by responding to your crazy posts
Ms. Baer, I hope you get slapped about and bullied like the poor author did after she made a small innocent mistake.
Stephanie
Baer, maybe if you ask nicely and apologize for your inhumane actions,
the author would be willing to continue writing her column for this
newspaper.
The readers have told you clearly and loudly that you are in the wrong. Will you continue being wrong or will you make amends?
by readers, you mean your multiple, colorful, and predictable posts? you seem to be the only passionate one here…just saying.
No, lots of readers have denounced Ms. Baer’s senseless sacking of the poor author on Facebook and here. Try to do your homework before attacking others.
Reposted deleted comment from What a mess:
I
feel that this is an incredibly malicious article. This girl made a
mistake and is now unnecessarily being branded a plagiarist in a little
article created just to humiliate her? There was a better way to handle
this. Come on, this is not the New York Times. I don’t know any of these
people involved, but I feel an incredible amount of empathy towards the author and equate the name Staphanie Baer with anything but high
class journalism, and if I ever see her name in ay publications in the
future I will know she made it to the top by knocking others down.
Deleted comment that made the editorial board overturn Stephanie Baer’s poor decisions:
Anyhow,
since you published libelous content with this article, you need to
step DOWN from your editor in chief/president post now. You terribly
handed this situation and have angered many readers shocked by your
senseless actions. The lack of humanity shown to poor the author
brings me to tears.
Dr.
Berkeley, if anything happens to the author because of this incident,
the editor should be personally held responsible for her bullying
behavior.
Deleted comment from Is the author OK?
Speaking
of which, I really hope the author is doing OK, and
that somebody has reached out to her. She did mention in her article
she’d “overcome an eating disorder” which is incredibly brave and
difficult to publicly announce, and then to receive a harsh backlash
like this must be traumatizing in itself. I hope if the author is
reading this, that you are alright and know most people here support you
100%. Don’t give up on your dreams, you are still a wonderful writer
who has overcome so much already. Please take care of yourself.
And to you, Ms. Baer: As far as I’m concerned, this girl’s strength,
transparency, and authenticity as demonstrate in her article is truly
admirable, rare traits to find in people nowadays, and the fact I
haven’t seen a single comment from her publicly on this issue speaks to
me of a dignity and class your staff could learn from. Not only is the
girl’s future at stake because of the newspaper’s improper handling of
this situation, so is her mental health, something you should have also
been aware of as she was public about having an eating disorder history.
You are dealing with somebody’s life here, and you should have shown
more sensitivity and responsibility.
Ms. Baer, you should have not so hastily and cruelly handed this; you
should have at least waited a few days and spoken to your entire
editorial board, which I doubt you did given how quickly you posted this
letter.
Also, is anybody else annoyed at how most of the readers seem to
disapprove of 1) associating plagiarism with this poor girl and this
note and 2) disposing of her, and yet, the editor hasn’t bothered to
respond to such overwhelming criticism and response? Yeah, so much for
“being accountable to the readers”, you’re not even listening to us.
Deleted comment from Guest:
Yeah,
Stephanie Baer needs to either step down from her post or publish an
apology letter regarding how she mishandled the situation and reinstate the author immediately. I’ve never seen a more cruel, callous person
than Ms. Baer who doesn’t give a damn about the author’s fragile
mental state and reputation.
Ms. Baer, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Thanks for all the support! Having said that, I have moved on with my life and am now humble and happy and take full responsibility for my actions. We all make mistakes, but its how we handle these mistakes that defines who we are as individuals. I hope you continue to remain active in the daily cal community and offer your very passionate voice to the many charities and problems facing our city.
Good luck with your life, Guest. I hope you too remain active in the Daily Cal community, albeit not as a volunteer hampered and restrained by unsympathetic editors.
It’s unfortunate that Stephanie Baer treated you as someone without a shred of human dignity, but now she’s revealed her ugly inner character so it’s good you’ve escaped her bullying. I wish you the best of luck in journalism with the Bay Area News Group. Go on to bigger and better things than the shitty Daily Cal and I’m sure Ms. Baer will have a taste of her own bitter medicine in the future.
Previous comment from Enraged:
ARE
YOU GUYS SERIOUS!? You are associating this poor girl with who seems
like she has very little prior journalistic experience who YOUR editors
failed to properly train (as Sink and Swim said below, why aren’t you
teaching new hires the ethics of journalist from the get-go anyways? I
bet you MOST average people don’t even know what on earth
“self-plagiarism” even is! I certainly didn’t until now -I think I could
have committed the same mistake if I were in the author’s shoes.
Shouldn’t this be standard protocol if, as you application site states,
you also are willing to hire people with no experience???) with
something that could very well damn her future employment-wise:
plagiarism, and self-plagiarism. As readers wrote on your Facebook page,
I don’t think you have that right.
The only thing you have the right to write is that she
unintentionally breached your policies and thus journalist etiquette, or
even ethics; it was a mistake made by somebody you could barely call a
journalist, as she hasn’t even been trained properly to be one nor given
the time to learn how to be one. At the very, very least, you should be
emphasizing this was not intentional on her part – did you even read
her article!? It was about ethics in the media in the first place!
Clearly this girl was just trying to help people and spread some
transparency in the media, but now you are accusing her of being
fraudulent whether you wished to or not by throwing around such loaded
terms like “plagiarism” and “self-plagiarism”.
You know what’s more unethical in this situation? Your editors
brandishing the word “plagiarism” from the get-go, letting her go so
harshly and now forever embellishing her with a word that could doom her
financial prospects in an already poor economy. Really, The Daily Cal?
You call this “punishment”!? I think a lot of us would agree that this
is just cruelty. I encourage the author to take this to
higher-ups and fight this case.
Way to go on being accountable to your readers and “ethical”. You’re
just showing yourselves to be irresponsible, unethical, cruel editors
who, like Sink and Swim said below, is “putting it off on the
little-guy.” Who are you doing this for anyways? It doesn’t sound like
you fired this girl for “your readers”, because your readers are enraged
with what you’ve done. No, it sounds like you’re doing this to maintain
your own image. Now watch as you ruin it.
I’m no longer reading this newspaper.
We have removed the name of the author of the column from the
post and subsequent comments due to concerns of how the issue may affect
the author’s employment prospects. We never had any intention
of harming the student by publishing the editor’s note and we apologize
for any undue hurt the note may have caused.
—The Senior Editorial Board
Thank you for overruling Stephanie Baer’s cruel, callous handling of the situation that brought me to tears.
Now please fire Stephanie Baer for her shoot-from-the-hip attitude that nearly hurt the author’s future employment chances or reinstate the author NOW. The author was a good columnist and didn’t deserve to be fired. Since you overruled Ms. Baer once, please overrule her one final time and reinstate the author. Thank you.
Previous comment from “Sink and Swim” said:
You
guys are pretty amazing. I read the article. It was pretty good. I also
read a recent piece on Israel from a writer who went on Birthright. I’m
upset with the former because it seems the editors are not doing their
jobs. Can you please tell me why you didn’t do your own research before
the article was posted, and even though you are the editor, a READER
pointed it out? Secondly, why didn’t you guys train her? I would assume
in the world of everyday publishing, one thing you would instill would
be the dangers of “self-plagiarism” instead of letting someone jump in
the water without teaching them how to swim thereafter.
Also, why is “self plagiarism” unacceptable…but slander is not. Do
you know what Birthright is? Would one of your columnists be allowed to
write an article, based off their one visit to China, or Africa, and
publish an article about “why chinese or blacks hate [insert group
here]?” Nope. But it’s okay with painting Israel as if Israelis, Jews,
or Birthright patrons are Islamic hating bigots? I am sorry but that is
not opinion–that is slander.
How dare you condemn this women for using her own material, about a
real issue, but allow a narrow-minded individual to paint an entire race
of people, or an organization as hateful based off his ONE experience.
Something is really wrong with this and I’m going to spread the message
to Jewish community at Cal try to get some answers. Great job, editors.
Way to lose track of accountability and respectable journalism. I don’t
know what’s going on up there but somebody needs to take some
responsibility instead of putting it off on the little-guy.
OK. So…then, if a student cheats on a writing competition by breaking one of the rules, but the judge fails to see it until later when he/she wins, and consequently disqualifies the student, should the student still be allowed to keep the trophy? ….
This was NOT cheating. This was the author’s OWN work and Ms. Baer decided to slander her because she had published it on a blog first. It is RIDICULOUS to call that cheating.
Previous comment from “Enraged” said:
ARE YOU GUYS SERIOUS!? You are associating this poor girl with who seems like she has very little prior journalistic experience who YOUR editors failed to properly train (as Sink and Swim said below, why aren’t you teaching new hires the ethics of journalist from the get-go anyways? I bet you MOST average people don’t even know what on earth “self-plagiarism” even is! I certainly didn’t until now -I think I could have committed the same mistake if I were in the author’s shoes. Shouldn’t this be standard protocol if, as you application site states, you also are willing to hire people with no experience???) with something that could very well damn her future employment-wise: plagiarism, and self-plagiarism. As readers wrote on your Facebook page, I don’t think you have that right. The only thing you have the right to write is that she unintentionally breached your policies and thus journalist etiquette, or even ethics; it was a mistake made by somebody you could barely call a journalist, as she hasn’t even been trained properly to be one nor given the time to learn how to be one. At the very, very least, you should be emphasizing this was not intentional on her part – did you even read her article!? It was about ethics in the media in the first place! Clearly this girl was just trying to help people and spread some transparency in the media, but now you are accusing her of being fraudulent whether you wished to or not by throwing around such loaded terms like “plagiarism” and “self-plagiarism”.
You know what’s more unethical in this situation? Your editors brandishing the word “plagiarism” from the get-go, letting her go so harshly and now forever embellishing her with a word that could doom her financial prospects in an already poor economy. Really, The Daily Cal? You call this “punishment”!? I think a lot of us would agree that this is just cruelty. I encourage the author to take this to higher-ups and fight this case.
Way to go on being accountable to your readers and “ethical”. You’re just showing yourselves to be irresponsible, unethical, cruel editors who, like Sink and Swim said below, is “putting it off on the little-guy.” Who are you doing this for anyways? It doesn’t sound like you fired this girl for “your readers”, because your readers are enraged with what you’ve done. No, it sounds like you’re doing this to maintain your own image. Now watch as you ruin it.
Previous comment that led to the Senior Editorial Board taking corrective action with regard to Stephanie Baer’s mishandling of the situation:
““Stephanie Baer is the editor in chief and president.”
Who
are you accountable to? Where can I ask to get you fired for being an
incompetent editor for not properly explaining republishing policy, not
having a plagiarism checking process in place, and smearing the name of
an innocent girl who did not know a damn thing about journalism?
Do you know what’s going to happen when people Google the author’s name? This is just disgusting, the Daily Cal covering its ass by sacking an UNPAID writer. You are despicable.”
Previous comment said:
Stephanie Baer, the
article’s author should sue you for libel. You’ve forever tainted her
name with the word “plagiarism” and her future prospects in the
journalism industry are dim after you blew this incident completely out
of proportions.
She made a mistake that ANYONE could have made.
This was her first article for fuck’s sake. She knew nothing about
journalism. She is a good writer and does not deserve to be sacked like
that.
Why don’t you fire J.D. Morris, the opinion editor, who is
supposedly experienced instead? Morris should have caught the error. He
didn’t. Ergo he should be fired.
Hell, why don’t you fire
yourself, Stephanie Baer, since you’re the most experienced at the paper
and should have already instituted checks for plagiarism?
Did
you remember that a student committed suicide in May? It’s because of
heartless people like you that people who are bullied and pushed to the
wall take their own lives.
Take a good long look in the mirror and reflect about how this could have happened to you on your first day at the Daily Cal, Ms. Baer.
Then do the right thing and reinstate the author.
Come on… seriously? This girl was clearly a good enough writer to be hired, and to have written columns for other websites prior, and you’re going to fire her even though you never warned her that her article may be published?! Yes, she made a mistake by submitting this piece, but it is still HER writing, and if HER writing granted her a spot at the Daily Cal, she should keep it! Wow, great job.
Haha did the Daily Cal really pull the article after all the comments began demanding someone a little higher than a new author be held accountable? Alright, “editors;” time to cover your asses now that the fan broke from all of the bs flying around. Fire your journalist, cover your ass. Well played guys.
Stephanie Baer, you do not have the right to refer to this as self-plagiarism. Even so, it is also not considered unethical in opinion columns. A quick Wikipedia search on the matter confirms this. You can check the articles Wikipedia has footnoted for confirmation:
“Typically,
self-plagiarism is only considered to be a serious ethical issue in
settings where a publication is asserted to consist of new material,
such as in academic publishing or educational assignments.[51]
It does not apply (except in the legal sense) to public-interest texts,
such as social, professional, and cultural opinions usually published
in newspapers and magazines.”
Exactly HOW is that “unethical”? She might not have followed the rules as dictated by you but you need a dictionary because I’m not sure you know what the term unethical actually means.
Ms.
Baer’s unethical firing of the author is evident. That leads me to
wonder what other unethical practices Ms. Baer has engaged in to become
the editor in chief and president of the Daily Cal …
OK. I think you are going too far here. I truly understand that the author was put in a difficult situation due to this incident, but Stephanie did what she had to do as the Editor in Chief to make sure something like this does not happen in the future. She admitted that it was Daily Cal’s fault for not doing a careful inspection on the applicants, AND retracted the author’s name to protect her future employment prospects. Now, I think that Daily Cal definitely deserved part of the blame for hiring someone who would use an already published work, conscious of it or not. In professional journalism, no one would care if one knew he or she was aware of plagiarizing or not. That being said, I think this is a fair trade. Despite the author’s mistake, she has a clean slate to start over elsewhere in the future. If you’re complaining about her being fired and disagree with the outcome, you are crossing a dangerous line where no one would be able to face consequences because of its being categorized as “unethical”. Lastly, come on, this is UC Berkeley publication, let’s not use the word, “unethical”, and be professional. This isn’t an elementary school paper.
“Lastly, come on, this is UC Berkeley publication, let’s not use the
word, “unethical”, and be professional. This isn’t an elementary school
paper.”
Ms. Baer wrote, “Regardless of the fact that they were the author of both renditions, the
reproduction of content without disclosing the existence of the
original piece is something the Daily Cal considers unethical.”
True, the quality of Ms. Baer’s writing and managing is like that for an elementary school paper. If the author was fired for mistakenly reusing her own article, then the opinion editor should be fired for not catching the mistake and Ms. Baer should be fired for willfully smearing the poor girl’s name before corrective action was taken by the Senior Editorial Board and for not having the plagiarism checking instituted in the first place.
This seems rather harsh. Wouldn’t a retraction of the article and a correction/comment explaining the situation have been sufficient? I don’t feel the columnist should have been sacked. I had never heard the term self-plagiarism before, but it certainly doesn’t seem like as serious an offense as true plagiarism.
On the plus side, all this fuss got me to actually read the article, which I probably wouldn’t have otherwise – and I thought it was a very good article! I think this young woman has a good future in journalism, despite this incident.
Link to deleted article: http://www.dailycal.org/2012/09/12/but-you-looked-different-on-facebook/
Wait a minute: you’re saying she plagiarized herself?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism#Self-plagiarism
Self-plagiarism (also known as “recycling fraud”)
is the reuse of significant, identical, or nearly identical portions of
one’s own work without acknowledging that one is doing so or without
citing the original work. Articles of this nature are often referred to
as duplicate or multiple publication. In addition
to the ethical issue, this can be illegal if copyright of the prior work
has been transferred to another entity. Typically, self-plagiarism is
only considered to be a serious ethical issue in settings where a
publication is asserted to consist of new material, such as in academic
publishing or educational assignments.
“this can be illegal if copyright of the prior work
has been transferred to another entity.”
Ay, there’s the rub. Reuse of copyrighted material can set you up with real legal problems.
Did you purposefully omit that last sentence about it not being unethical in columns? Because I just Wikipedia’d this myself, and there you go:
“Typically, self-plagiarism is only considered to be a serious ethical issue in settings where a publication is asserted to consist of new material, such as in academic publishing or educational assignments.[51] It does not apply (except in the legal sense) to public-interest texts, such as social, professional, and cultural opinions usually published in newspapers and magazines.”
The Daily Cal does not have the right to refer to this as
self-plagiarism, or call it unethical. As the Wikipedia post notes, it is not considered unethical in
opinion columns like these, but it is in “academic publishing or educational assignments”:
Sounds kinky. She must have been drunk like Nadia.
Stephanie or Sheena?
Reposting comment in reply to:
“Stephanie or [redacted]?”
Definitely
Stephanie. Why else would she not have any compassion and humanity?
Stephanie Baer, the cruel editor, needs to wake up from her soul-sucking
nastiness and reinstate the author NOW!
I’m surprised and unimpressed no one was bothering to Google articles before now. At least this wasn’t as ridiculous as when that short-lived Sex on Tuesday writer was stealing ejaculation quotes from Wikipedia.
Right?
My god, this paper is such a joke lol. Whatever you gotta do, Daily Cal. No one reads your papers anyway, and this SNAFU shoot-from-the-hip handling of this situation is not going to help. Your judgement and handling of this seems a bit unethical, since you guys have been throwing that word around a lot.
So, just so we are all clear, it’s okay for one author to steal wiki quotations about ejaculation; it’s okay for a women to write about her first lesbian experience, which has zero point to it; and it’s okay for one of your “journalist” to write an “opinion” piece about Israel and anti-Muslim Zionists; and it’s okay that–because of this specific article you wrote an editors note about–YOU changed your screening process due to the fact you guys messed up. But it’s not okay for someone to submit their own original work (inadvertently)?
The management of this paper is a mess. How about taking accountability a little higher, instead of letting crap journalist publish nonsense while cutting a girl after her FIRST article. Like I said, you guys are a joke.
God, the logic in these comments is amazingly stupid. YOU read the paper, obviously, idiot.
Actually, name-caller, not really. But thanks for the thought? I caught wind of this s***-storm because of three stories circulating campus, Facebook, Cal Tv, and some local SF papers. K, thanks byeee.
So do you agree with
Stephanie Baer’s shoot-from-the-hip attitude to brand the author as a
plagiarizer and immediately fire her?”