Dear John
John Garamendi, who is running for California's lieutenant governor, apparently thinks it's perfectly fine to steal journalists' articles and post them on his campaign's Web site. Now, that's all fine and dandy, but it's not OK if he gives no credit. Take, for example, this specimen, which was written about a year ago by yours truly. It's been republished word for word, quotes and all, with no attribution. The login-free version of my article is here.What really bothers me is that Garamendi is taking credit for getting the article published, but I had almost finished the story when I got a press release from Garamendi's office and decided to throw his quote in for good measure. I'd be flattered if they'd even credited my newspaper, but they didn't. Last time I checked, journalists get credit, too.
Of course, it's not like the whirlwind plagiarism expose of Kaavya Viswanathan, the 19-year-old Harvard student who got a $500,000 book deal when she was 17 but just had the deal rescinded when it turned out she'd royally plagiarized from several chick lit authors.
There's a difference, though: Mr. Garamendi is running for public office; that teenager is not. So, Mr. John Garamendi, get over yourself and starting giving credit where credit is due. It makes me wonder how many other things you mistakenly take credit for.
Posted by Layla at 9:47 PM, May 05, 2006
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