Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Margaret Wente, plagiarism, and The Gelber Prize


Below is an updated version of a post from earlier today.  

Given Ms. Wente’s history of attribution problems (and other ethical lapses, like the supposed Occupy protester, "John"), some found it odd that she was a juror for The Gelber Prize.

Wente:  As Ms. Freeland writes, the super-elites are often the product of a strong market economy. But as their influence grows, they can become its opponents.

Ian Birrell, Feb. 2013:  As Freeland says, super-elites are often the product of a strong market economy, but as their influence grows, they can stifle it.

Birrell concludes with the observation that “there is a huge difference between being pro-business and pro-market”, his central argument.

And then there’s this:

Wente:  They use their lobbying power to tilt the playing field, not to level it. As a result, serious tensions emerge between a pro-market agenda and a pro-business one.


Most lobbying seeks to tilt the playing field in one direction or another, not to level itAs a result, serious tensions emerge between a pro-market agenda and a pro-business one.

Wente's last sentence is identical to Zingales.

Freeland deserves the prize.  Along with her journalism and three kids, she finds time to produce book length works with significant original ideas and research.  Ms. Wente?  Even without kids to raise, one might say she’s been 'leaning back' for years.


Update:  A correction (or something) now appears at the bottom of the Wente column discussed above.  Previously missing quotation marks (and some rewriting appear) in the article. 

That brings to at least 10 (not counting a published letter that addressed a misrepresentation) the number of corrections or Editor’s Notes obtained by this little blog in the last couple years in relation to Margaret Wente.  Really, it shouldn’t be that easy for amateurs to spot problems over morning coffee.  It is also our view that there are a significant number of other problems, equally worthy, which have been left to stand.

Here’s what it says:

Earlier online versions and the original print column about Chrystia Freeland’s Plutocrats incorrectly attributed a statement about tensions between a pro-market agenda and a pro-business one to Ms. Freeland. In fact, in her book, Ms. Freeland quoted University of Chicago professor Luigi Zingales from a 2009 essay with that statement.

In a January column about its corrections policy, The Globe and Mail’s Public Editor, Sylvia Stead (whose handling of the September 2012 Wente plagiarism affair was roundly condemned), wrote about how she would strive to provide “greater transparency, to make it clearer for readers to see exactly what went wrong”, adding, “humility is a good thing for everyone in the media to embrace. So the New Year’s resolution is to be more transparent, to better explain what went wrong so that you don’t have to go fishing in your recycling box to figure it out.”

Unfortunately, readers again had to “go fishing” for the print version “to see what went wrong”, and what had been changed.  Here is the original text as it appeared in Wente’s article:

As Ms. Freeland writes, the super-elites are often the product of a strong market economy. But as their influence grows, they can become its opponents.  They claim they’re pro-market, but what they really are is pro-business. They use their lobbying power to tilt the playing field, not to level it. As a result, serious tensions emerge between a pro-market agenda and a pro-business one.

And here is how it reads now:

As Ms. Freeland writes, the super-elites are often the product of a strong market economy. But as their influence grows, they can become its opponents. They claim they’re pro-market, but what they really are is pro-business. Ms. Freeland cites University of Chicago professor Luigi Zingales as saying they use their lobbying power to tilt the playing field, not to level it. “As a result, serious tensions emerge between a pro-market agenda and a pro-business one.”

Having since found  Freeland’s book, it’s also worth noting that The Globe apparently sees no need for Ms. Wente to enclose these identical sentences from it in quotation marks (as happened with a very Dana Milbankish column noted here) :

Freeland:  Super-elites are often the product of a strong market economy. But as their influence grows, they can become its opponents.

Wente:  The super-elites are often the product of a strong market economy. But as their influence grows, they can become its opponents.

Doesn’t look like Sylvia Stead’s New Year’s resolution lasted very long.