Don't Drag Me Down

Once upon a time, I was in second grade. In an attempt to teach us proper research skills (or something, who knows), our class was given an assignment to pick a topic, use one source and write a short report on the subject.

At that age, 7 or 8, I was obsessed with horses. I read everything I could about horses, horse care, different breeds, showing requirements, bloodlines ... I was convinced that if I just gathered enough logical, sound information about their care and feeding that I could coerce my parents into getting me a horse. That never happened, and as it turns out, I'm allergic to hay dust, but that's another story.

I decided to do my report on Morgan horses. (If you want to know about them, just Google it.) But, as was and still is my way, I procrastinated. I put the report off until the last minute, and the night before it was due, copied the Encyclopedia entry word for word, and turned in the report.

That was my first and last experience with plagiarism. After a call to my parents, a spanking, and a new assignment for which I was to write about plagiarism, why it was wrong, and how to avoid it, there was no way I was ever going to endure that humiliation again.

As an English/journalism major in college (hat tip to Bruce Reynolds, my absolutely amazing, fucking incredible journalism professor), it was brought home again and again that a good, ethical journalist does their own research, writes their own words, in their own voice ... etc. etc. etc. And Prof. Reynolds had a saying that sticks with me to this day: "Even if your mother says she loves you, VERIFY."

I do that and more. With the advent of the Internet, it's even more important. But it also opens up new avenues and gray areas that can get me into trouble. Publicly available information is a gold mine for a journalist, but some people interpret the use of that information differently. Anyway, again, that's another post.

Fast-forward 25 years from that fateful day in second grade to a time about 6 months ago. I'd just begun working on a steady, month-to-month contract with Mr. Big. Our Web traffic was in the toilet, and Mr. Big hit upon a strategy to boost our page views, individual story traffic and our click-through rates.

Each of us, full-time or contractor, was to look through Google's Science/Technology and Business News pages, find a story of interest to our readers, and do what we call a "write-through," a reworking of an existing piece that another publication had posted, had picked up by Google and was generating a lot of traffic.

I was appalled, to say the least. Memories of second grade flooded back, and I voiced my objections to Mr. Big.

"This is dangerously close to plagiarism," I said. "What happens when someone decides our pieces are just way too close to theirs? This is so wrong." Others agreed. Mr. Big assured us that if we were extremely careful, we could avoid any issues. And hinted that we might all be out of a job if our traffic didn't improve.

Against my better judgement, I went along with it.

Six months go by. About a month ago, Mr. Big brought up a sore subject -- a former colleague of ours who'd just been fired the week before because her stories (Google or no) weren't bringing in enough traffic. He advised us that our write-through quota would increase, and that we'd each be required to do at least one a day.

Again, we all objected, and at that point he again brought up our former co-worker, saying that if we didn't want to suffer the same fate, we'd have to do this.

This is all a long-winded intro to my main reason for blogging this today. Yesterday, another magazine whose story I referenced for one of my write-throughs accused me of plagiarism.

I'm furious. Not really at them, honestly, but at myself. Why did I go along with this knowing full well what could happen? Why did I let Mr. Big's threats get to me? What the fuck is wrong with me? I KNOW BETTER THAN THIS.

Yeah, Mr. Big pays my bills and he's the main source of income for me right now. But is it really worth selling our my journalistic integrity? I have nothing but my reputation as a freelancer, and if that's ruined, I'm utterly fucked (for lack of a better term.)

I don't know yet what's going to happen. Mr. Big claims he'll back me up and has responded to the complaint. But who knows?

I'm pissed and I'm scared and I'm never doing anything like a write-through again, even if it costs me my one big, steady client.