Critical Incidents in Journalism

Pivotal Moments Reshaping Journalism around the World

Edson Tandoc Jr., Joy Jenkins, Ryan Thomas, Oscar Westlund, Edson C. Tandoc Jr., Joy Jenkins, Ryan J Thomas, Oscar Westlund

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000296785
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Journalism
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This edited collection examines critical incidents journalists have faced across different media contexts, exploring how journalists and other key actors negotiate various aspects of their work.

Ranging from the Rwandan genocide to the News of the World hacking scandal in the UK, this book defines a critical incident as an event that has led journalists to reconsider their routines, roles, and rules. Combining theoretical and practical analysis, the contributors offer a discussion of the key events that journalists cover, such as political turmoil or natural disasters, as well as events that directly involve and affect journalists. Featuring case studies from countries including Australia, Germany, Brazil, Kenya, and the Philippines, the book explores the discourses that critical events have generated, how journalists and other stakeholders have responded to them, and how they have reshaped (or are reshaping) journalistic norms and practices. The book also proposes a roadmap for studying such pivotal moments in journalism.

This one-of-a-kind collection is a valuable resource for students and scholars across journalism studies disciplines, from journalism history, to sociology of news, to digital journalism and political communication.

SECTION II
Characteristics of Journalistic Work

2.1

PEELING OR PLAGIARIZING? A DANISH MEDIA SCANDAL AS AN INCIDENT OF RE-INSTATING BOUNDARIES IN THE GREY ZONES OF “GOOD” JOURNALISTIC CITING PRACTICES

Jannie Moller Hartley, Maria Bendix Wittchen and Mark Blach-Ørsten

“How much can a journalist steal before it’s cheating?”

This question featured as the headline on a story about one of the most significant plagiarism scandals in Danish journalism: the scandal of Annegrethe Rasmussen, which broke out just before Christmas in 2015.

Stealing stories or elements of stories from competitors is not completely forbidden—it is rather a question of what, how much, and how you “steal.” In the ideal world of journalism, just posing the question is risky, as the answer to the question should surely be “a journalist must not steal at all,” but as this case shows, the journalistic practices of citing are far muddier than those of the ideal world, and the borders are very grey. In this chapter, we look at these grey zones by analyzing the scandal of Rasmussen, who was laid off from a number of freelance positions following accusations of plagiarism. This followed another scandal that same month involving the sports journalist Michael Qureshi—a case of not only plagiarism, but also of making up sources and interviews that had never taken place (Blach-Ørsten et al., 2018). In this specific incident, the actions of the journalist and columnist Rasmussen created a debate on the rules of so-called peeling, which refers to writing an article using multiple direct quotes from someone else’s work and attributing competing media in daily journalistic practice, and at the same time exposed contradictions between the dominant media ecology and the ideals of original journalism.

Rasmussen, who worked as a freelancer for the online political site Altinget, was accused of plagiarizing from The Economist in one of her articles, which spurred a number of investigations into her work and a debate about whether what she had done involved too much copying without attributing the source of information, and therefore could be characterized as plagiarism. This question, however, is not a new one. As White (1989) notes, “it’s difficult for a journalist to know when lack of attribution suddenly is no longer lack of attribution, but plagiarism” (p. 267).

The debate surrounding the scandals went on for several months and was later said to be the most important media event in 2015, a year that was furthermore dubbed “the year of embarrassment for the news media industries” (Hombek Toft, 2015, para. 3). Hence, this makes an interesting case for looking at citation practices as a site of boundary negotiation within Danish journalism. Gerbner (1973) coined the term “critical incident” in his discussion of decision-making processes in media organizations. He argued that critical incidents give organizational members a way to defuse challenges to recognized authority. For journalists, discourse about critical incidents suggests a way of attending to events that are instrumental for the continued well-being of the journalistic community (Zelizer, 1992). The case of Rasmussen can be seen as a critical incident, where themes in journalistic practice, such as attributing, referencing, citing, peeling, crediting, being inspired, rewriting, and plagiarism, were heavily discussed by the public and among journalists in particular. In this chapter, we seek to illustrate how such a negotiation took place, consider where the norms of how to attribute and cite were challenged by the specific reporter accused of plagiarism, and investigate the public debate that arose following the accusations.

Correct attribution and the ecology of citation

Two years before the incident, the rules, practices, and boundaries regarding “correct attribution” had already been under scrutiny. The Danish Ministry of Culture initiated a project aimed at making the rules of attribution clearer, which resulted in new guidelines. Following this debate, the private media association Danske Medier (Danish Media) developed new and detailed guidelines for “good attribution” practices in 2016, and they were revised again following years of debate and internal discussions in 2019. Furthermore, the Ministry commissioned a large scientific study of citation practices, which examined the amount of news articles where the journalist had cited another media organization in the story (Blach-Ørsten et al., 2013). The research showed that over 50 percent of all news articles in a given week mentioned another media outlet as the source of the story or as inspiration for the story and that the ecology of citation was primarily national. Previous research on digital news production has shown that it is an integrated and very common part of Danish news production to rewrite news or use other media’s original news stories to develop new angles (Brink Lund, 2002; Hartley, 2009, 2011).

From outside the Danish context, research has also shown that “making use of a competitor’s news is common in the news business, but usually some attempt is made to disguise it by re-writing” (Chaney, 1984, pp. 29–30, as quoted in White, 1989, p. 272). Another study has shown that attribution is used to “give strength to the material, when controversial statements are made, when a reporter is unsure of the credibility of the material, or when generalizations are made” (Mencher, 1984, p. 43). Nevertheless, the specific rules seem unclear and undefined, although, when breached, journalists refer to “journalism ethics” and suggest that “re-writing is a common practice” in journalism (White 1989, p. 271). Karlsson (2011) and Blach-Ørsten and Brink Lund (2015) argue that most of the practice of journalism is invisible before the final product appears, echoing Singer (2005), who labeled journalism as one of the opaquest industries. This means that cases related to the norms and practices of journalism are rarely discussed in public or even inside the newsroom, as they are implicit in journalistic work.

Paradigm disguise is a variant of paradigm repair, which is defined as a journalistic ritual to defend professional ideology. It “builds on that construct by explaining why journalists ... are more willing to disclose plagiarism and dismiss offenders without evaluating whether the punishment fits the crime or addressing the situational influences that contributed to the plagiarism” (N. P. Lewis, 2008, p. 354). Thus, paradigm disguise has the specific purpose of hiding how actions of journalists might conflict with an ideal image of journalism, an ideal the journalistic institution wishes to uphold in public and within the field. Hence, the case of Annegrethe Rasmussen is an illustrative example of boundary work related to the unclear rules of how much citing, rewriting, and “stealing” is acceptable and an example of paradigm disguise, with the aim of keeping up the pretense of originality in journalism (N. P. Lewis, 2008). Analyzing 76 cases of plagiarism in the United States, Norman Lewis (2008) differentiates between four types of plagiarism: appropriation plagiarism (knowingly and repeatedly taking another’s work); research plagiarism (taking some words or research without attributing); self-plagiarism (recycling one’s own words with a different employer); and idea plagiarism (using an idea or concept from other people’s work). The Rasmussen scandal involved elements from the first, second, and fourth type of plagiarism. The correspondent admitted to using words and sentences from other people’s work without attributing, and she was accused of having done so repeatedly. As we shall see below, she also said that many of her stories were “inspired” by reading other people’s work. The discussion, which unfolded during 2015 and 2016 amid the accusations and the responses, questions what journalism is and what journalism is not, thereby negotiating the boundaries of originality in journalism. We examine this in the following section, presenting the analysis of the Rasmussen case.

The grey zones of attribution: The case of Annegrethe Rasmussen

The scandal originated when a reader of the online political news magazine Altinget.dk noted some similarities between a column written by freelance foreign correspondent Annegrethe Rasmussen and an editorial written by The Economist. This led to quick action by Altinget. On December 14, 2015, the editors of Altinget.dk analyzed the two different articles, and on December 16 they publicly accused Rasmussen of plagiarizing the idea and specific paragraphs from an article published by The Economist:

The similarities between the two texts are regrettable. As a minimum, there should have been a reference to The Economist. It is a violation of our ethical guidelines and we take it very seriously.

(Nielsen, 2015, para. 5)

The guidelines to which this editor refers are internal guidelines, which, in the Danish media system, supplement the national press’s ethical rules. In 1991 these rules were made a part of Danish law, as a part of the Media Liability Act (Medieansvarsloven). Most news organizations in Denmark have signed up to the National Press Council (Pressenœvnet); however, in the ethical guidelines there is no mention of how to cite or reference competing news organizations. Many news organizations, however, also have internal guidelines. In some cases, these are written down. But in others, they exist as a set of unspoken norms about how good journalism is done (Blach-Ørsten et al., 2017). Norman Lewis (2008) notes that in the United States, many professional codes ignore the subject and that plagiarism is most often seen as an individual moral failure rather than a structural issue or simply part of everyday journalistic practices.

Following these initial accusations, the weekly newspaper Weekendavisen published an article with the headline “Recycled Paper,” comparing the sections in six of Rasmussen’s articles, finding similarities between her articles and several articles from The Guardian (Henningsen, 2015). The piece considered the situation article by article, line by line, stating how much is quoted and which articles lacked attribution. Rasmussen was asked to comment, replying that apart from one example, there are no errors from her side. Furthermore, she said that “to me it feels like a witch hunt.”

Rasmussen felt wrongly accused and defended herself in a long Facebook post that included the response she had sent to Weekendavisen. In this post, she provided links to eight different Google documents, finding only one place with no reference to the source of the information, and apologized. She noted in her post that the Weekendavisen violated the rules of sound press ethics by not letting her respond to the criticism before publishing the article about her. In the thread underneath the Facebook post, she continued her defense, maintaining her claims of being a victim of a character assassination. Article by article, she discussed the journalistic practices and the guidelines she was accused of violating. She used the practice of “peeling,” a part of everyday news work, to justify why what she had done was not a violation:

Now to a question of principles. In journalism we have a not very honored discipline (however good for the readers and those you also have to keep in mind) and that is “peeling”. You see a very good book and you think: “Yes! The readers need to know about this book too”. That’s how I felt when I read the 416-page book by Scott Stossel, editor of the renowned magazine The Atlantic, My Age of Anxiety, which is about the devastating anxiety he has experienced his whole life. So, this article is a bunch of quotes from the book, tied together by a few sentences by me. And that is what we might call copying, but one which is agreed upon with the newspaper and declared.

(Rasmussen, 2015)

In the post, she admitted that her own work in this case was minimal but argued that it was ethically permissible, as it was a service to the readers. Furthermore, she let everyone know that this was “business as usual” in journalism. In relation to this case, the newspaper Information publicly announced that they have an internal guide specifying “how to peel” stories (Vaaben & Funch, 2015).

Rasmussen’s defense did not stop the criticism. Altinget.dk published their version of the incident on December 19, 2015, in which they let her know that they did not recognize her “version of the story,” thereby indirectly accusing her of lying. Altinget. dk started a larger investigation into 18 of her articles and in January 2016 concluded that while 10 of them had “no problems,” four were in a “grey zone,” and four were “breaking the rules of good citation practices” (Nielsen & Jerking, 2016).

Rasmussen was also freelancing for the Psychologist Union’s magazine, P, for whom she had conducted an interview with an American professor of psychology. Her article was examined by the magazine, which announced they found examples of plagiarism from American sources in the interview. They named the statement “Serious mistakes in article” and withdrew the article (Dansk Psykolog Forening, 2015). They later changed their internal guidelines of referencing and citing. Rasmussen did not explain why she thought it was okay to reuse interview quotes from another article in an interview done by her, but she did apologize to the editor (Hojsgaard, 2015). In a long interview about the whole affair, Rasmussen called it an “absolute nightmare” and insisted that she had not plagiarized but had just been “sloppy”. She admitted to not telling the truth about the use of The Economist’s column in the beginning, declaring that she had ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Theorizing critical incidents in journalism across the globe
• Section I Conceptualizing Critical Incidents
• Section II Characteristics of Journalistic Work
• Section III Communities Engaging in Interpretation
• Section IV Consequences of Critical Incidents
• Index