Ehrlich Has Last Laugh
aim.org
In Maryland, a prominent critic of Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich has been forced to resign after pleading guilty, in effect, to plagiarism. Columnist Michael Olesker, who was a darling of the liberals for his vicious attacks on Ehrlich, had been using material for his columns from stories in the Washington Post and New York Times and even his own paper, the Baltimore Sun, without attribution or credit being given. "I made mistakes" is what he told his own paper in a story about his resignation.
Ehrlich had been so disgusted by Olesker's journalistic antics that he had banned state officials from talking to him and another journalist from the Sun. The paper had sued over the ban.
It turned out to be a case involving far more than a few "mistakes." And Olesker's editors at the Baltimore Sun have egg all over their faces for having stood behind him when the first evidence of his plagiarism surfaced.
On December 24, the Sun had run a correction about one of Olesker's columns, saying similarity in wording between his column and a story from the Washington Post had resulted from Olesker simply being confused about what was written in his notes. Sun City Editor Howard Libit gave Olesker the benefit of the doubt, insisting that "these kinds of things" had not come up before when reviewing his work. It turned out that Libit and other Sun editors had not been looking hard enough.
The first case of "borrowing" material, in what the Washington Post labeled an "attribution issue" rather than plagiarism, was uncovered by Kevin Dayhoff in an article for thetentacle.com, a website serving Frederick County, Maryland. When additional cases were uncovered by Gail Dechter of the Baltimore City Paper, Olesker was forced to quit the paper. |
