Beware. Some part of what follows may have been cut and pasted from another publication or website.
The idea of journalism being the profession that ate itself was underlined over the course of the last few days with the outing of Neil Harman, pictured left, as a plagiarist over a book he edited for the All-England Club last year.
Harman, the long-time tennis correspondent of The Times, has admitted he is guilty as charged, and today was suspended by the Thunderer.
The allegations originated in the United States, and carried more than a tinge of professional spite. And a hint of holier-than-thou hypocrisy. Harman even found that his personal Facebook page was hacked, so that someone could alter his employment status to "former" correspondent. Classy.
Harman, previously an enthusiastic tweeter, has quit both Facebook and Twitter following the storm that has blown up around him.
The nub is that he copied chunks of other people's work - from American dailies, The Guardian and Sports Illustrated - and used it in the 2013 edition of the Wimbledon Yearbook.
In all, around 30 instances of over-enthusiastic use of cut-and-paste, without proper attribution, was discovered by the dogged investigative sleuths of Slate. Someone, somewhere has spent a considerable amount of time and effort trawling through editions of the Wimbledon Yearbook and cross-checking with other publications' reports from SW19.
You can read the whole of the Slate piece here.
Roy Greenslade's Media Guardian news report provides a more succinct version of events.
Now, no one is going to condone what Harman did. But there has been more than a touch of a witch-hunt going on here - the Times man, until he resigned the post, was the co-president of the International Tennis Writers' Association, but it would be fair to say he has never been universally popular with his press box colleagues at home or abroad.
As one of the tennis journalists who saw their work appear without permission or provenance in the Wimbledon Yearbook told me today, "To be honest, I'm not that bothered about it. For one, I'm not that precious.
"But it's not as if he was using my writing to in some way make him look like a better writer. The book was an end-of-season rush-job, and he was also working on an Andy Murray book at the same time.
"Elsewhere in the book, he's included proper attributions to the people whose copy he's used. But he's failed to do that properly all the way through. What he's done has been lazy and sloppy, but not much worse than that."
Yesterday, Harman sent this letter of resignation from the ITWA: “It has been brought to my attention that I have severely compromised my position as a member, having used unattributed material to form part of my writing of the Wimbledon Yearbook. There can be no excuse for such shoddy work, which I deeply regret. I did it without malice aforethought, but that I did it at all is simply inexcusable.
“I sincerely had no idea the extent to which I had let the Club, myself and my colleagues down and feel it is only right that I relinquish my membership. This is a marked stain on my reputation and (I hope) good name."
The email was circulated to the ITWA membership privately. Someone then published it. "That was just not right," our tennis writer said.
It seems unlikely now that the cherished invitation to become a member of the All-England Club will ever be forthcoming for Harman. More seriously, he could lose his Times job, even though there's not been any suggestion that he has committed any heinous plagiarism while doing his day-job as a reporter for the paper.
It seems that the digital lynch mob, with their virtual pitchforks and torches, is intent on demanding his head, as they pursue a standard of ethics and conduct which has been sadly lacking in the manner Harman has been treated.
The idea of journalism being the profession that ate itself was underlined over the course of the last few days with the outing of Neil Harman, pictured left, as a plagiarist over a book he edited for the All-England Club last year.
Harman, the long-time tennis correspondent of The Times, has admitted he is guilty as charged, and today was suspended by the Thunderer.
The allegations originated in the United States, and carried more than a tinge of professional spite. And a hint of holier-than-thou hypocrisy. Harman even found that his personal Facebook page was hacked, so that someone could alter his employment status to "former" correspondent. Classy.
Harman, previously an enthusiastic tweeter, has quit both Facebook and Twitter following the storm that has blown up around him.
The nub is that he copied chunks of other people's work - from American dailies, The Guardian and Sports Illustrated - and used it in the 2013 edition of the Wimbledon Yearbook.
In all, around 30 instances of over-enthusiastic use of cut-and-paste, without proper attribution, was discovered by the dogged investigative sleuths of Slate. Someone, somewhere has spent a considerable amount of time and effort trawling through editions of the Wimbledon Yearbook and cross-checking with other publications' reports from SW19.
You can read the whole of the Slate piece here.
Roy Greenslade's Media Guardian news report provides a more succinct version of events.
Now, no one is going to condone what Harman did. But there has been more than a touch of a witch-hunt going on here - the Times man, until he resigned the post, was the co-president of the International Tennis Writers' Association, but it would be fair to say he has never been universally popular with his press box colleagues at home or abroad.
As one of the tennis journalists who saw their work appear without permission or provenance in the Wimbledon Yearbook told me today, "To be honest, I'm not that bothered about it. For one, I'm not that precious.
"But it's not as if he was using my writing to in some way make him look like a better writer. The book was an end-of-season rush-job, and he was also working on an Andy Murray book at the same time.
"Elsewhere in the book, he's included proper attributions to the people whose copy he's used. But he's failed to do that properly all the way through. What he's done has been lazy and sloppy, but not much worse than that."
Yesterday, Harman sent this letter of resignation from the ITWA: “It has been brought to my attention that I have severely compromised my position as a member, having used unattributed material to form part of my writing of the Wimbledon Yearbook. There can be no excuse for such shoddy work, which I deeply regret. I did it without malice aforethought, but that I did it at all is simply inexcusable.
“I sincerely had no idea the extent to which I had let the Club, myself and my colleagues down and feel it is only right that I relinquish my membership. This is a marked stain on my reputation and (I hope) good name."
The email was circulated to the ITWA membership privately. Someone then published it. "That was just not right," our tennis writer said.
It seems unlikely now that the cherished invitation to become a member of the All-England Club will ever be forthcoming for Harman. More seriously, he could lose his Times job, even though there's not been any suggestion that he has committed any heinous plagiarism while doing his day-job as a reporter for the paper.
It seems that the digital lynch mob, with their virtual pitchforks and torches, is intent on demanding his head, as they pursue a standard of ethics and conduct which has been sadly lacking in the manner Harman has been treated.
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