Shaving Mirror Journalism

Mike Billington, nominal publisher of one of Sun Media Group's regional editions, contributes another 800 words to a genre inspired by what a writer sees each morning in the shaving mirror. The genre is particularly beloved among journalists slouching toward retirement and wouldn't be worth mentioning except that Billington's navel gazing upstages a genuine, if minor, event.

Billington launches his 20-inch contribution to the news hole by announcing the title of his not-yet-written autobiography.* He lists states he has lived in, tallies houses and apartments he has occupied, details reasons and motives for moves made, and classifies abodes as rented or owned.

It's only at the end of the second leg of type that a persistent reader encounters the news. A nice real estate lady is having an open-house tour next weekend. OWW wonders if the organizer is as enamored as Billington is with his extensive change-of-address history. Her message is interred under the sod of this self-proclaimed gypsy's nostalgia.

*A Google search of "No Fixed Address" takes 0.09 seconds to return 133,000 prior usages of his inspired title.

Diabetes Columnist Plagiarizes ADA Website

Joe Valley, Sun Media Group's diabetes writer, runs a column today that's a simple reproduction of American Diabetes Association's Internet page on foot problems. The only difference is that the version in the Charlotte Sun newspaper carries Joe Valley's picture -- clearly intended to suggest to readers that he wrote the material.

At the end of the article, Joe Valley refers interested readers not to ADA or another reliable source, but to his own website. The website is anchored with Google ads ("The Diabetes Lies"), and the front page says Joe would "love to here from others..." and wants "hints" and "idea's" to improve his site.

Old Word Wolf recommends several improvements: Stop plagiarizing. Learn to attribute. Write your own stuff -- and then get a proofreader.

The newspaper column makes no reference to any credentials that the writer might have, much less any reference to the source he plagiarized. Judging by his column photo, he's just another pretty face for Sun Media Group's lineup of writers who get paid to copy the internet.

Plagiarizing Preacher Steals Website Words

Brett Jones is the newest person to join the Sun Media Group's growing roster of plagiarizing preachers. To honor the tradition of stealing words and dishing them up one's own, Venice Gondolier editors might consider naming the Saturday section "Plagiarism."

It is likely that Pastor Brett Jones knows quite well what attribution is. Like most in his business, he probably attributes whenever he quotes his particular holy book, noting that his words and ideas came from a particular chapter and verse. But for some reason, Pastor Brett Jones thinks it's OK to write from the Internet without attribution.

A phrase search quickly shows that Brett Jones didn't write his news announcement; he copied it word for word without a quotation mark or one word of attribtion from a news release or website of some sort. After plagiarizing, he sent the document to Gondolier editors as his own work.

About that byline -- make it "Pastor Brett Jones, Guest Plagiarist."

Sun Correspondent Finds Sources Worse Than Wikipedia

Today's stoopid story diligently lists "references" to half a dozen websites that a "correspondent" scraped to produce a holiday feature based on sources lower than Wikipedia.

OK, Barbara Bean-Mellinger gets credit for attributing, after a fashion, but the sources she uses would make a tenth-grader blush.

For example, Bean-Mellinger turns to American History Fun Facts, a website run by "Julie," who says right up front, "I’m not a historian." Julie says she's a stay-at-home caregiver for elderly parents and sells homemade jewelry. When not blogging presidential fun facts, she Tweets with the group, Right Wing Women. The bead-stringing nonhistorian frames her site with ads, pleas for donations and shopping links. Not a single fact that Sun-Herald correspondent Barbara Bean-Mellinger uses from this site is attributed to a credible source -- although a bunch of stuff seems to originate with other "fun facts" sites and Wikipedia -- based on the usual clues, including wording.

No, we don't like to use Wikipedia as a major source. But there are worse sites and Bean-Mellinger has located a nice array of them. The result isn't research or journalism; it isn't fact checking; it isn't news or reporting. It's what sixth graders do when they write their first "research paper."


Bean-Mellinger attempts editing, but her idea of it seems limited to lopping off the last half of sentences (in order to create a wow factor?). For example, an ABC News site Bean-Mellinger cites says President Barack Obama's high school nickname on the basketball court was "Barry O'Bomber." Bean Mellinger reports it was "O'bomber." Shortening the name makes it at least half wrong. The ABC news article goes on to quote its real-person source as saying former team members "still see him as Barry."

Bean-Mellinger lops off half of another story when she reports John Quincy Adams "swimming nude in the Potomac every day." Mellinger's Fun Facts source includes a significant qualifier: "in good weather," and goes on to note that several presidents did much the same. Again, Bean-Mellinger edits not for accuracy and clarity, but to slant material in a failed, amateurish attempt to make it more interesting (I'm guessing).

In other editing, Bean-Mellinger sweepingly reports "Not surprisingly, our presidents were avid speakers." The unchecked correspondent seems oblivious to Thomas Jefferson's famous aversion to public speaking. The carefully documented and researched website, Monticello.org (among other respected sources) reports that John Adams during the first Continental Congress said "I never heard him [Jefferson] utter three sentence together." Jefferson himself documented his wish "to go on a strict but silent performance of my duty..." Which he did: Jefferson did not speak the annual messages to Congress but wrote them out and sent them by secretary. The point is that one exception to the correspondent's sweeping generalization relegates Bean-Mellinger's reporting to the silly file.

But, as they say on the shopping networks: "Wait! There's more!"

When Bean-Mellinger reports the "fun fact" that Grover Cleveland "had been the public executioner in Erie County, N.Y.," she misrepresents by omitting context. Erie did not have a position called "public executioner." Death by hanging was an order that a county sheriff was required to oversee if needed. He could either carry out the execution or pay a deputy $10 to do the deed. Sheriff Cleveland did not shift the onerous task to an underling and did pull the trapdoor lever for two hangings, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Allan Nevis. (Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage. New York: Dobbs Mead & Co., 1932. Page 61.

Wait. There's more. Bean-Mellinger reports Martin Van Buren was the first president "actually born" in the United States. By once more omitting context, she suggests the first seven presidents were not. Any professional and ethical reporter would feel obligated to work in a phrase or two clarifying that every president has been born on American soil; the first crop of them merely came along before the republic was formalized.

Any writer who manages to dumb-down sites like "www.classroom.help.com" to compile a Presidents Day feature for grownups earns neither her paycheck nor the trust of Sun-Media Group readers.

Telegraphing Errors: Columnist Didn't Check the Facts

Irrelevant to his actual topic, in-house columnist Lang Capasso claims in this morning's Gondolier that Samuel Morse chose the question "What hath God wrought?" as the first telegraph message. Wrong.

The first error in Capasso's unchecked reiteration of folk history without checking the facts begins with who he says chose the ceremonial phrase. It wasn't Morse. It was the daughter of the nation's patent commissioner at the time and her mother, both good friends of Morse, who selected the rather silly rhetorical question for telegraph transmission on May 24, 1844 from a B&O Railroad Depot in Baltimore to the U.S. Supreme Court chambers in the Capitol (Encyclopedia Britannica).

But, more than three weeks before the ceremonial public message, the telegraph had been used to send word that the Whig Party convention had nominated its candidates: Henry Clay for president and Theodore Frelinghuysen for vice president. The results were famously telegraphed on May 1. Upon hearing the telegraphed news, the dot-dot-dit-dit reply came: "The passengers in the cars gave three cheers for Henry Clay," as Morse himself records in his letters. (The cars are railroad coaches, traveling the B&O Line from Baltimore to D.C.) And, a year and a half earlier, in December 1842, Morse had been busy stringing wires and sending messages back and forth to demonstrate the invention's potential for rapid communication. His audiences for the telegraphed messages were potential supporters and backers.

But surely a newspaper man's own capacity for logic would prompt him to reason that a new invention requiring innovative technologies for the time, like a telegraph, would undergo tests and demonstrations before a public unveiling. That thought would motivate most thinking writers to pause and check the facts rather than rely on elementary-school folk history.

How does Old Word Wolf make these claims, contradicting the newspaper? OWW checks a primary source: "Samuel F.B. Morse, His Letters and Journals in Two Volumes." Volume II (1914) has been available on the Internet at Project Gutenberg as an Ebook (No. 11018) since February 2004. In Chapter XXX, Morse's letters and correspondence to his brother and colleagues confirm these items and dates, as interested readers can see, below the fold.

"Things went well to-day [May 1]. Your last writing was good. You did not correct your error of running your letters together until some time. Better be deliberate; we have time to spare, since we do not spend upon our stock. Get ready to-morrow (Thursday) as to-day. There is great excitement about the Telegraph and my room is thronged, therefore it is important to have it in action during the hours named. I may have some of the Cabinet to-morrow.... Get from the passengers in the cars from Baltimore, or elsewhere, all the news you can and transmit. A good way of exciting wonder will be to tell the passengers to give you some short sentence to send me; let them note time and call at the Capitol to verify the time I received it. Before transmitting notify me with (48). Your message to-day [May 1] that 'the passengers in the cars gave three cheers for Henry Clay,' excited the highest wonder in the passenger who gave it to you to send when he found it verified at the Capitol."
....."You will see by the papers that the Telegraph is in successful operation for twenty-two miles, to the Junction of the Annapolis road with the Baltimore and Washington road. The nomination of Mr. Frelinghuysen as Vice-President was written, sent on, and the receipt acknowledged back in two minutes and one second, a distance of forty-four miles. The news was spread all over Washington one hour and four minutes before the cars containing the news by express arrived. In about a fortnight I hope to be in Baltimore, and a communication will be established between the two cities. Good-bye. I am almost asleep from exhaustion, so excuse abrupt closing."
....."The conventions at Baltimore happened most opportunely for the display of the powers of the Telegraph, especially as it was the means of correspondence, in one instance, between the Democratic Convention and the first candidate elect for the Vice-Presidency. The enthusiasm of the crowd before the window of the Telegraph Room in the Capitol was excited to the highest pitch at the announcement of the nomination of the Presidential candidate, and the whole of it afterwards seemed turned upon the Telegraph. They gave the Telegraph three cheers, and I was called to make my appearance at the window when three cheers were given to me by some hundreds present, composed mainly of members of Congress."

You can't believe what you read in the papers if the guy making the report can't be bothered to check the facts before his bosses print and distribute 30,000 copies all over town.

Plagiarism Seasons "Corey's Kettle" Recipe Column

The January issue of Smithsonian Magazine is on the coffee table. Old Word Wolf has just finished reading its article "A Plague of Pigs in Texas" by John Morthland and Wyatt McSpadden. Anyone can read it on the Internet -- and in today's Lake Placid Journal. That's because the Journal's one-named writer seems to have plagiarized it. Even the photo "Corey's Kettle" submits to Journal editors as his own work is a rip-off from the Internet, posted there and credited to Richard Wooders dot com. After seeing the gruesome stuffed pig, both in Corey Kettle's plagiarized version and the unappetizing orignal, OWW questions Corey Kettle's taste as well as his ethical compass.

Press Release Plagiarism: Byline Steve Reilly

The news is on a state Web site, and it doesn't carry the byline of Charlotte Sun writer Steve Reilly. That means Reilly didn't write it. So far, so good.

The news also appears on page 3 of this morning's Venice Gondolier -- with Reilly's byline. Not so good. OK, Reilly seems to have written part of it -- about half, by eyeball estimate.

Yes, dumping another writer's work into the middle of one's own is OK -- if accompanied by credit and quotation marks. Reilly eschews both.

In addition to plagiarizing wording and the order of ideas from the state's web site, Reilly copies the officials' commentary -- canned quotes -- that the state placed in the news release. Reilly's tactic is designed to mislead readers into thinking he had conducted interviews and gathered expert insights into the story. Well, you can't believe everything you read in the papers.

Here is what commentators far removed from Old Word Wolf say about the practice.


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Helpful Photo of the Week

Editor's Math Skills Decline Faster Than Teen's Alcohol Use

Today's Charlotte Sun editorial repeats errors and miscalculations made by staff writer Greg Martin in his Jan. 26 article about a statistical decline in self-reported drug and alcohol use among area middle- and high school students.

Both the news article and editorial trumpet good news: Self-reported substance use among school-attending teens is in a fairly steady downward trend in Charlotte County, according to the survey. And so are the grown-ups' math skills. Here are the editorial writer's claims, repeating the reporter's flawed grasp of FCAT math:

According to the 2010 report, the percentage of county middle and high school students who said they had used alcohol within the past 30 days has decreased 16.7 percent from 2002. Binge drinking decreased 7.2 percent and tobacco use decreased 8.9 percent.

Not even close. First-year journalism students know percentages and percentage points are quite different. Consider this example: Suppose a report says 10 percent of Easter Islanders got tattoos last year, but this year only 8 percent got inked. Reporters would correctly report a 2-point difference -- representing a 20-percent decrease from last year.

Here's what the local writers might have correctly reported:

The survey says 42.2 percent of the surveyed students in 2002 reported using alcohol in the last 30 days compared to 27.6 percent in 2010. That is a 14.6-point difference, representing a 34.5-percent decline.
In 2002, some 23.8 percent of the surveyed reported binge drinking in the last 30 days compared to 15.1 percent in 2010. That's a 8.7-point difference, representing a 36.5-percent decline.
In 2002, some 20.7 percent of the surveyed reported using tobacco compared to 13.8-percent in 2010. That's a 6.9-point decline, representing a 33-percent decline.

The first error by both reporter and editor is not doing the math -- not even a round-number estimate in their heads (OWW's first red flag). The second error is not comparing what they wrote with what they read.

Which brings OWW to the next question: Where the heck did the reporter get his numbers? Looking Table 5, we see these percentages -- none of which substract out to 16.7, 7.2 or 8.9:

Substance _ _ 2002 -- 2010
Alcohol .............. 42.2 -- 27.6
Binge Drinking ... 23.8 -- 15.1
Cigarettes .......... 20.7 -- 13.8

The closest OWW can come to tracking down this error is at least some of the reporter's misinterpreted data comes from Table 4, which reports "lifetime trends," and not Table 5, which reports 30-day past usage.

The news is good but the math is awful -- as with another headline story in a sister paper, The Journal of Lake Placid ....where Editor George Duncan claims via cliche that time travels faster when there's a crafts fair on the horizon. But, the last time we checked, every day lasts 24 hours and every hour lasts 60 minutes.

All Children are Male

The Charlotte Sun's executive editor reports that he dropped by a local elementary school to read to the kids. Apparently all the children he met were boys. Here's the editor's summation:

If a child doesn't get interested in reading at an early age, it becomes more difficult as he get's older. ... the trick is finding something that will spark his interest. ... take him to the library ... let him pick out some books ... find magazines he may like ....

The saddest part about Chris Porter's clueless sexism and offensive stereotyping is no one on the copy desk dared to correct a senior editor. Male privilege, perhaps. No, the really saddest part is Porter himself couldn't be bothered to revise and polish. Simply couching the passage in the plural ("... if children aren't interested ... spark their interest ..." etc.) wouldn't leave out half the school's pupils.

Correspondent Gets it Wrong

A lot has gone wrong with the "science" and "medicine" that Liliane Parbot-Johnson gushes in today's "Feeling Fit" feature about North Port's Warm Mineral Springs.

Parbot-Johnson's reporting for the Charlotte Sun newspaper flies the usual red flags, but one of its larger alerts stems from the writer's careless use of superlatives, her naïve acceptance of what someone says, her failure to attribute, and her decision to not check claims. Parbot-Johnson's "stoopid science" begins with the headline that picks up her essay's flawed, main theme: swimming in mineral water cures what ails you. But there's more than a Lourdes mentality working here. She rewrites history without so much as a nod to a credible source.

During the 1970s', the mineral springs, she reports, became the site of archaeological research:

During that decade, archeological research done by the state of Florida resulted in making Florida the oldest area inhabited by human beings in the Western Hemisphere. Previously, the title had been held by Mexico, but at Warm Mineral Springs, human remains were recovered from an underwater shelf.

Ignoring the illogical last clause, we ran an Internet search, turning up several reports of the area's archaeology, centered at nearby Little Salt Spring. George Wisner writing for "Mammoth Trumpet" reports scientists believe a Stone Age hunter enjoyed a meal of turtle at this site about 12,000 years ago. Other artifacts at the spring include a 7,000-year old greenstone pendant, and a carved spear handle believed to be between 8,000 and 9,000 years old.

Impressive -- but hardly the oldest artifacts in the Western Hemisphere that Parbot-Johnson claims, all on her own without attribution. Here are just a couple of recent reports:

One of the oldest radiocarbon-dated sites in North America is along the Savannah River, Allendale County, S.C. Albert Goodyear, a University of South Carolina professor, says findings suggest this site, called Topper, "is the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America. However, other early sites in Brazil and Chile, as well as a site in Oklahoma also suggest that human were in the Western Hemisphere as early as 30,000 years ago ..."

In 2009, University of Colorado anthropologist Douglas Bamforth, identified 83 artifacts that have been dated to "nearly 13,000 years ago" found by a Boulder, Colo., landscaping crew under a customer's front lawn.

It's hard to tell from her sloppy reporting, but OWW believes Parbot-Johnson has confused the country of Mexico with the state of New Mexico. The prevailing theory that the first humans arrived in the Americas about 12,000 years ago is based on a famous archaeological dig near Clovis, New Mexico.

Columnist Burns Newspaper's Credibility

Steve Sachkar, a newspaper general manager and sometime biz-column compiler, seems to think that embedding "... he said" into a wildly improbable -- and false -- claim is sufficient and responsible reporting. It's not.

Sachkar is promoting a man who cleans clothes dryer vents. He writes: "Roger Frechette Sr. .... states that dryer vent fires are the No. 1 cause of fire in the country." No, they aren't.

Sachkar's photo invites OWW's estimate of his age at somewhere near the mid-century point: old enough to know better. Working in a news environment, he surely has heard phrases such as "fact check" and "verify," or perhaps "biased, unreliable source." It seems almost willful for him to ignore such a fishy sounding claim from a man whose livlihood depends on frightening the bejezus out of people.

So, what are the leading causes of fire in the country? According to the Quincy, Mass.,-based National Fire Protection Association, in the five-year period ended in 2007, cooking fires accounted for 40 percent of home fires followed by heating equipment (18 percent), intentional fires (8 percent), electrical equipment (6 percent), and smoking (5 percent). The association lumps washers and dryers together to arrive at a figure of 4 percent -- sixth ranked, at best. Other fire-data collection sources provide similar information. None rank dryer-vent fires as a "leading cause," much less the No. 1 cause.

Sachkar's credibility has gone up in smoke. We suggest the general manager remove "reporting" from his list of things to do.

Almost the Same Isn't the Same

Vencie Gondolier's features page today is largely "correspondent" Francine Milford's piece describing a local marathon runner as a "retired New York policeman." In fact, there's no such thing as a New York policeman, retired or otherwise. Police are municipal employees. Milford apparently doesn't know that New York is a state, not a municipality.

Her subject is a retired Colonie, N.Y., policeman. Colonie is a municipality -- a town. Does it matter? Only to those who care about accuracy in journalism. Milford doesn't. Her editors didn't. Well, we do.

We also care about a well-written sentence, so it's always amusing -- in a painful kind of way -- to turn to Lake Placid's Journal Editor, George Duncan, for his unique syntax, spelling and punctuation. When Duncan writes about literacy, his typos, errors, and fundamental mistakes add an amusing layer of irony:

Literacy Week will continue until Jan. 28 and to celebrate students at the Lake Placid High School are being challenged to read one (or more) out of five books offered in this pro-reading week. ...

"October Sky” is the true story of a West Virginia boy who grew up to become NASA scientist and has been made into a movie. ...

In “Generation Dead,” high school students die but come back to life and become a unique branch of humanity, and is meant as a take of tolerance. ...

" ... Domino’s have been gracious enough to donate the pizzas ..."

" ... Teaching a work of literatrue ..."

" ... the revision of Mark Twain classic book "Huckleberry Finn."

George, "Huckleberry Finn" is not the book's correct title! Elsewhere in the story you refer to a football as "oval shaped." No, not so.)

The headline says that students will participate in literacy week. We hope the newspaper editors consider participating, as well.

Keyboards Have " Keys; Real Journalists Use Them

People who fail to use quotation marks around the words of others are plagiarists. Roger Button fails to put quotation marks around the words of others. Roger Button is a plagiarist.

Button, a business columnist for the Venice Gondolier, writes as if journalism's rules for quoting sources do not apply to him.

Plagiarism is just one of Button's problems. The front-page, copy-desk written headline says "Economist sees recovery in 2011." The story says 2012.

But the rest of the story isn't very accurate, either.

Accuracy: The document Button copies from says Florida's economy is measured at "three-quarters of a trillion dollars." Button rounds that up to $1 trillion -- a $250 million error.

Accuracy: The document Button copies from says 2011 housing starts "will waver between 44,000 and 50,000." Button changes that to "between 40,000 and 50,000."

Accuracy: The report author's title -- according to Button -- is "director of economic competitiveness." Button leaves out the keyword "Institute" and fails to correctly capitalize the organization's proper name.

Transparency: Button quotes the dean of the institution as if there had been an interview. The quote is a direct lift from the report's foreward.

Back to Button's plagiarism: : The highlights in the screen shot are the unattributed sentences and phrases Button culls from the original report and offers up to Gondolier's readers as his own work.

Real journalists know where the quote-mark key is on their keyboards.

Bad Ideas: SCAT Head and Highland Games

"SCAT head" in today's Venice Gondolier is a thoroughly bad hed. But as usual, the Lake Placid Journal walks away with the day's bad-idea prize. Journal editor George Duncan digs into his bottomless bag of inapt analogies to call Halloween as bad an idea as "camber tossing." Sorry George, no such thing. It's called caber tossing -- and it has nothing to do with tricks and treats.

Top Real Estate Agent Presents Copied Column as Her Own

Over in the Venice Gondolier, real estate agent Gae Stewart's photo and byline anchor her business page column. Neither the editors nor Stewart tells readers her article about a proprietary software product, Listingbook, is an ad. Instead, readers are invited to assume Stewart has written the article. She puts her name and face to words she presents as her own work.

Now deep into the muck of plagiarism, Stewart fails to acknowledge in her publicist-produced piece that she did not interview the people she quotes. She does not give sources for the claims she makes. She does not attribute the information, not even to the software firm that is the most likley source for her prefabricated words. She has become a willing shill on someone else's street corner.

This particular article has been making the rounds since August. The firm has been selling its product since 1999, according to 2007 promotional literature written by Andy Baron for a Fort Myers agency. It is fair for readers to suspect a deeply rooted conflict of interest: The more people buy the product, the better off Stewart will be. She has not disclosed if that benefit is because she owns stock, is a principal in the Listingbook firm, or if it helps her sell more houses. Journalism tells readers things like this. Advertisements don't.

Stewart is credited at the end of "her article" with being president of the Venice Area Board of Realtors. At the end of this blog post, she's credited with being Sun Coast Media Group's newest plagiarist.

No, George. Chapter 23

Lake Placid Journal Editor George Duncan: "Beatrice [became] the fictional guide through the classic book "Dante's Inferno." (LPJ July 28)

No, George. Virgil was Dante's fictional guide through the "Inferno," which is the first half of an epic poem called the "Divine Comedy."

Tell; Don't Ask

In Journalism 101 classes across the nation, usually in the weeks between early and mid-October, tyro newsers and budding editors learn this bit of reader-friendly advice: No Question Heds.

Here are some jottings from an old notebook of mine, circa ... nevermind.

-- Headlines don't ask questions; that's the reporter's job.

-- Questions, by definition, don't inform.

-- Questions are incapable of reporting an event or development succinctly and factually.

-- Questions encourage readers to turn the page; most readers will think they know the answer to "stoopid questions" and move on to more informative fare.

My late-life corollaries:

Question heads tell readers that the weekly Arcadian's editors do not know that reading stories is part of their job descriptions. Question heads tell readers that the editors find the challenge to assemble an inviting, succinct, clear-eyed, fair-minded report of the column's content is excessive, mispent effort.

Question heads tell readers that the weekly tab's editors prefer the easy way to assemble a simulacrum of a newspaper: word-process whatever vague question had prompted the writer, blow it up to 36 points, break and center on three lines. The only newspaper-like goal is filling that annoying white space over the story.

Back to the reading part of the job. Here's what the question asker missed by not freeing up about 60 seconds to read her own newspaper:

Sentence 2: The May 25 vote was controversial ...
Sentence 3: ... activitists came in numbers,* warning of the dangers ....
Sentence 10: ... commissioners did the right thing .... even though they were faced with opposition and negative public opinion.
Sentence 11: ... the controversy is not over ...
Sentence 12: ... [Future developments] will surely spark a heated debate and cause much controversy ...
Next to last sentence: ... environmental issues and other concerns will have to be debated and resolved ...

Dear Editor: In answer to your question, the phosphate controversy is real; the newspaper? Probably not.


*The rest of us came in shirts and jeans.

Tuning-Fork Therapy Inventor is Newest Sun Plagiarist

Congratulations to Francine Milford, “Sun Correspondent” who today helps continue Sun Media Group’s tradition of filling its pages with plagiarized material. The Reiki Master and inventor of Tuning Fork Therapy -- turned journalist -- has raised the bar for "stoopid" reporting: her plagiarism is combined with her naïve promotion of a dentist whose practices have put his license at risk and who is facing substantial fines and professional probation from the state's Board of Dentistry.

We’ll start with the plagiarism.


Milford’s 20-incher on page 11 of today’s local section, “Area dentist hopes to improve quality of life,” is a pastiche of dentist Joseph A. Gaeta Jr.’s own Web sites and chunks of material that appear in scores – hundreds, actually – of other practitioners’ vanity sites.

Using the pre-written material is plagiarism because Milford, a licensed massage therapist who offers Bamboo Chair Massage when she’s not doing journalism, copies and presents the words of others as her own – her byline alone with no attribution, no credit, no quotation marks, no acknowledgement.

Through a combination of state-of-the-art technology and treatment plans, Gaeta preserves healthy teeth and gums, alleviates oral discomfort and improves the appearance of smiles on a daily basis. He has applied his unique blend of artistic and technical skills to produce durable and aesthetic results in thousands of patients.

Search using any key phrase in the paragraph and Google coughs up 380 occurrences on the Web – only the names change to accommodate specific practices, which range from Los Angeles to New York and seem to appear in most if not all 50 states. With that number and range, the statement comes close to being an industry standard. Milford, however, claims she wrote it when she hands it in to her editors without quote marks, attribution, or a source other than her own name on the article.

Sun Correspondent-Reiki Master-Tuning Fork Therapist Milford presents this article as an interview she conducted with the dentist, ostensibly eliciting this personal anecdote from Gaeta:

Before I became a dentist, I had observed my grandparents in their twilight years and specifically the impact that failing teeth had on them. Their quality of life had been diminished and there was a constant complaint of discomfort. Failing dental health affected their self image; it limited their diet and the basic ability to chew.

Compare that with a Web site called Imagine Your Smile where a testimonial by John C. of St. Paul MN posted two years ago that goes like this:

I had observed my parents and grandparents in their twilight years and specifically the impact of failing teeth. In each case, the quality of life had been diminished. Failing dental health affected their self image; it limited their diet and the basic ability to chew. Also, there was a constant complaint of discomfort ...

Actually, it's unlikely Milford stole the testimonial from “Imagine Your Smile” because Gaeta himself had already plagiarized the material and posted it on a free, self-publishing vanity service called PRLog just this past March.

Milford’s plagiarism isn’t her only failure as a journalist. She didn’t take a peek at Florida Department of Health’s Web site and check Gaeta’s status with the state. If she had, she would have found six administrative complaints and four disciplinary actions -- and the threat of additional sanctions -- lodged against Joseph A. Gaeta Jr. D.D.S.

Gaeta's most recent discipline stems from a 2003 patient complaint described in the disciplinary section of the minutes of the Board of Dentistry’s July 31, 2009 meeting. In this case, Gaeta is accused of failing to meet “minimum standards in diagnosis and treatment” and failing “to keep written dental records” that would justify a specific course of treatment.

The Board of Dentistry’s hearing officer that day recommended a $20,000 fine and a 30-day license suspension, during which time Gaeta could not practice dentistry. The hearing officer also recommended five years professional probation, a two-year remedial education course, and continuing education credits every year for the rest of the life of his practice.

In its final decision, the disciplinary board moderated the recommendation to a reprimand, $5,000 fine and a 30-day license suspension. It ordered Gaeta to take and pass a laws-and-rules exam within one year of the board’s final order. It ordered him to complete a two-year, comprehensive dentistry course within 36 months and remain on probation until this is done. In addition, Gaeta must also complete continuing education credits annually for the next four years. And finally, he has to reimburse the board within three years for the $40,000 it is costing the state to investigate, prosecute, and oversee his case until it closes.

The most recent communication from the state to the public about this dentist occurred just four weeks ago. On April 26, the board posted notice that Gaeta failed to pay the $5,000 fine and now is seeking “one or more” of several actions that include permanent revocation or suspension of practice, restriction of practice, an administrative fine, reprimand, probation, or “other corrective actions,” such as remedial education.

Milford has an obligation to readers, editors and journalism’s professional standards to report these charges instead of simply promoting Gaeta’s practice expansion as the next best thing to Color Therapy. She has an obligation to ask if his sudden affailiation with Alan Devos' dental practice (Devos will be Gaeta's "associate," Milford writes) has anything to do with a state requirement for professional supervision.

** The link seems to not work. Here's a copy of the page at the DOH Website, which is availble by clicking on the dentist's information card at that site.

Arcadian Journalism: How to Say Nothing in 600 Words

Today’s editorial is small town journalism at its worst: important and powerful names are scrubbed from the record, facts are vague, unsourced, and undated. The issue is never clearly stated. The outcome is never explained. The various sides of the debate are not aired. No one is interviewed.

“Athletes learn wrong lesson from parents” allocates almost 600 words in six hefty paragraphs in paen to the virtues of sports for kids. The brave writer tells Arcadians that sports are an “important, positive influence” in child development. The brave writer goes out on a limb to opine that young athletes learn cooperation, playing by the rules, and acceptance of authority.

The brave writer broaches the notion that sports require “practice and determination.” She endorses good parents who “enroll” and then “transport” children to an activity that will make their offspring “better off.”

Whew! Are we there yet? Readers who have slogged more than halfway through the “editorial” (we are so very very grateful that the U.S. Consititution protects free speech so we can mull this amazing communication), wondering what any of this bland vanilla, clichéd, trite, homogenized, platitudinous verbiage has to do with the headline.

Oh, here it comes! Fifth graf:


“In recent times [that’s the “when” part of Arcadian journalism], it appears some parents and parent coaches have lost sight of what the real purpose and goal is for participating in sports. [So many purposes have been regurgitated that we lost track of the “real” one.]. There is a report of three parent coaches of a winning team [named?] trying to change league [which league?] rules to allow them to coach their league all-star team, instead of allowing the other head coaches in the league to participate. [Who made this report? Which league is under discussion here? Where and when did the attempt to change league rules occur? What's with "allow?" Isn't a rule a requirement?]

When the coaches [which “the coaches”?] were unsuccessful in changing the rules [rule or rules?] , they walked off of the field, [which field?] in full view of the other children, [the coaches are “other children?”] with the head coach taking his own child with him. [And that head coach is named?] In other words, if the coach couldn’t have his way, then he wasn’t going to participate at all or even allow his child to participate. Are these the guiding principals [principles] we are trying to instill in our children through sports? Certainly not. [Is this the standard of journalism we are want to instill in our editorial writers? Certainly not.]

Shame on those parents and coaches who display conduct they would never condone from their own children or players.[Shame on editorial writers who fail to adhere to the basics of journalism, like explaining who, what, when, where and why.] This type of behavior [journalism] is unacceptable and should not be tolerated by ether [either] those parents who participate for the right reasons or the league that organizes these sporting opportunities for children. [How can we be warned about this terrible danger when readers don’t know any of the most basic facts.] We cannot let a few bad apples spoil the sports barrel for the rest of us. [Another charming cliché – but what the heck is a sports barrel?]

Excuse me; I have to go find some fish to wrap.