Firedoglake is helping circle the wagons around Chris Hedges by posting a sneerily dismissive post about the New Republic article. (Don’t get me wrong, TNR can be full of shit and often is, but that doesn’t mean Ketcham’s article was.)
The New Republic has published a hit piece on Chris Hedges that accuses him of plagiarism — without ever really documenting any direct plagiarism as far as I can tell. I’ll admit that my eyes started to glaze over as I read the 5700 word piece, so it may have crept in there and I had simply gone catatonic.
Documentation? What kind of documentation would you expect other than what he provided? Photographs of the original copy? (Granted, he did ask for that in the case of the Harper’s piece, and was refused, so maybe that is the kind you’d expect.)
In mainstream journalism, with editors and fact-checkers, you assume that they’re not going to publish something of this kind unless they know it’s solid. That’s in fact part of why the Harper’s fact-checker kept on checking those facts: the reputation of Harper’s depends on not blithely publishing mistakes or lies or plagiarism. I really doubt the editors of TNR just read Ketcham’s article and said “cool story” and published it.
The piece was passed on by the American Prospect and Salon before TNR decided to pick it up. I started reading it thinking “okay, plagiarism, Chris Hedges, I’ll read this,” expecting to find some legitimate examples. But the best they could do was one section of a Harper’s Magazine article Hedges said he used with permission, and the original author wouldn’t comment. Then the article goes on to document times where Hedges’ writing was “close” to other pieces.
This story was maybe worth 500 words. Maybe. Apparently the Prospect and Salon didn’t think the Harper’s story wasn’t worth of publication without some sort of confirmation, and I have to say I’d make the same call. The only reason you’d publish a 5700 word long screed like this is if you really, really hated the guy and wanted to defame him and tarnish his image. (The next step will be to consistently refer to the fact that Hedges has been “accused of plagiarism in the past” — typical Neocon circle-jerk disinformation hatchet job).
Ah, no. That’s bullshit. Those places where Hedges’s writing was close to other pieces? They count. You cite people when you quote them, at least in non-fiction. (Allusions are part of the conventions of literature, including sticking them in without identifying them.) It can be just three words – “to paraphrase Hemingway.” But you’re supposed to say at least those three words rather than pass off an idea as your own if you’re imitating it as closely as Hedges did.
Maybe Prospect and Salon did think the story was worth publication but just didn’t feel like publishing it themselves. Maybe they said oh damn, Hedges plagiarizes, but we love him so…we’re not going to be the ones to go with this.
Regardless of whether the section was lifted or not, it does not take away from the fact that Hedges is a remarkable writer and a very original thinker. If you’re going to take the time and energy to read something, I’d highly recommend his “Rules of Revolt” published earlier this week, where he ruminates on the lessons of Tiananmen Square. I tweeted it out when I first read it, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
I’m sorry I wasted my time reading the TNR piece. It’s just juvenile neener-neener link bait.
Well he’s clearly not “a very original thinker” and from what I know of his writing he’s a terrible writer. Maybe I Don’t Believe in Atheists was unusual in its badness, maybe all his other stuff is well-written, but I found his ragey dishonesty in that book way too repellent to want to read anything else he wrote.
And at the end there it is, just as I said – “neener-neener link bait.” Uh huh. Jane Hamsher knows that how? Maybe the same way Chris Hedges knew all the untrue things he said in I Don’t Believe in Atheists.
I read his American Fascists and it was pretty rough going. The ideas weren’t particularly tough, but the writing was a brutal slog. I’m VERY glad I never read I Don’t Believe In Atheists. So I really doubt that it was unusual compared to his other writing.
I started reading it thinking “okay, plagiarism, Chris Hedges, I’ll read this,” expecting to find some legitimate examples.
Oh, that’s silly. If someone accuses a journalist of plagiarism it’s going to be pretty much immediately obvious that they did it, or not. Is skepticism warranted regarding such charges? I doubt it — if I thought “no, it’s impossible so-and-so would plagiarize” I’d just wait a day or two and see if there was any substantial effort to debunk the claim. It’s not like a plagiarist can hop in a time-machine and destroy the evidence, after it’s been in print. This is the kind of thing that sorts itself out in the wash very quickly and if the accusation of plagiarism is a lie that’ll be pretty obvious pretty fast, too. But, this sounds a whole lotta lot like every other “discovery of plagiarism” story I’ve heard. That tends to make me suspect it’s a whole lotta lot like every other “discovery of plagiarism” stoy I’ve heard.
Part of the “sneering” is complaining about the LENGTH. More than once. Of course if it had been a short article, there would have been sneering about the length from the opposite direction.
See, me? I think the length is probably to do with the fact that this is a very serious allegation, and they’re making sure they dot their ‘i’s and cross their ‘t’s to avoid the very obvious lawsuit that would follow if they’re lying. I mean, they aren’t just calling out Hedges, there’s specific claims about a bunch of other publications, their editors and fact checkers, etc. It is VERY specific about the charges, and Jane Hamsher is being outrageously dishonest by pretending this is nothing more than a very long hit piece with zero content.
Wow. I neither know nor care who this guy Hedges is, but if he has done anything for the Left, that’s nice. Being original or attributing quotes, however, is mandatory. It doesn’t matter how much he seems to agree with one’s political perspective.
The reaction at Firedoglake is pretty sad, and appears to be purely ideological (something they claim about the “hit piece” repeatedly in the comments). You have to scroll way down the comments before anyone says anything reasonable. The complaint about length is, quite frankly, preposterous. It isn’t repetitive. It’s full of multiple examples with quotations form those involved. But i guess one can complain about too much evidence as well as too little evidence, in an unreasonable manner, if one wants to believe.
“Abracadabra! Word no longer have meaning!”
Hedges is a remarkably mediocre thinker and a worse writer. His thinking may be original but his writing isn’t.
Wagon circling in response to plagiarism accusations against an in-group member is sadly common.
A couple of other cases I’m familiar with:
Psychologist and CSICOP Fellow Robert Baker: http://www.discord.org/~lippard/Bakerchronology.html
Australian skeptic, anti-creationist, and climate change denier Ian Plimer: http://lippard.blogspot.com/2009/11/more-apparent-plagiarism-from-ian.html
And there are more in the skeptical literature that haven’t been publicly reported yet.
Ophelia:
I’m not likely to read the book, but I’m curious–how does he justify not believing in atheists (if indeed he does; I can imagine the title being slightly misleading)? Is it the “deep down, everyone believes in god” BS or something else?
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From the quoted material in the OP:
Or perhaps Ketcham treats accusations of plagiarism seriously and wanted to be thorough in his criticism of Hedges. Which is pretty much what happened.
I also don’t think Jane Hamsher (the writer of the firedoglake article) has psychic abilities, so speculating on Ketcham’s emotional state and intent does nothing other than attempt to tarnish his image. Rather ironic, that.
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And wow, the apologetics in the comments of the firedoglake article (and more whining about the length of the piece from TNR)…geez…
The guy lifted from Hemingway. Hemingway!!!
Holy shit, that would be as if I lifted my blog comments from Christopher Hitchens. Of course they’d be snappier than what my aging grey matter can produce (drunk or sober) but — lifting from “A Farewell to Arms” into a book about the horrors of war, amounts to hoisting the idiot-roger.*
(* Clearly I did not lift that from Hitchens)
The reason the piece on Hedges is so long is because it contains blockquotes like this:
Slightly worrying that a writer/editor or whatever they are doesn’t have the attention span to read a mere 6000 words.
Well ‘writer’ on this staff, apparently, is mostly cut and paste…
(/The editing, the reasonable conjecture seems, is largely a matter of running spellcheck.)
Wow. So if that one sample provided by Marcus is any indication all it takes for Jane to consider text merely “close” is to remove one sentence and 13 words. One can’t help but wonder if she still laughs giddily from playing peekaboo.
It was long because there were so many examples. Sheesh.
The example @10 reminds me of what I never understand about plagiarizers. Okay, you’ve decided you’re going to cheat and steal someone else’s work. Why not reword some stuff and PRETEND you didn’t steal it?
Tony @8,
If I recall correctly, Hedges’ argument “against” atheists pretty much boiled down to: “Hitchens and Harris are neocons. I hate neocons. Therefore, New Atheism sucks. Therefore, atheism sucks.”
Admittedly, I’m basing this on reviews of the book and one or two of Hedges’ articles on the subject.
footface@15,
Because that would involve work, which defeats the whole point of plagiarism to begin with.
I suspect that very few plagiarizers do it because they think “well, I could never write anything as good as this, so I’ll steal it.” It’s no doubt the truth in many cases, but I don’t think that’s the rationale. They do it because it actually takes work to write something from scratch.
The sad thing is I’m certain that college students who’ve made more changes than he did have faced automatic expulsion. If @10 were an entire essay, plagiarism detection software still would’ve come back with a 100% match rating because it uses no original words nor deviates in structure.
Any editors here? I am told in response to a comment at FDL that if one is an editor, the New Republic examples are risible …. I am not an editor, as a layman I just think the examples appear pretty egregious ….
I’m an editor, and also a writer who sometimes writes for publication. I say the examples are pretty egregious.
I also say that as a reader. That’s not just a lay person; it’s someone who relies on writers to be honest.
Tony @ 8 – he doesn’t. The title was just a bit of smartassery – and not very good smartassery at that. No wonder he plagiarizes.
Anyone who is even marginally literate could peg the example in @10 as plagiarized. Hamsher has to try to set the bar for recognizing plagiarism as “editor or higher”, because it’s so laughably easy to spot in this case, there is no other refuge for this scoundrel. If an editor contradicted Hamsher, she’d attack that editor’s credentials.
I just find it interesting, the discrepancy of opinion, when I’d think that there would be accepted standards of conduct, which, when breached, would bring about the same kind of reaction even from fans. That would be: “Whooooey, i love this bloke’s writing generally, but this is crazy unethical and damn disappointing.” But that’s not what I’m seeing from some people, and I’m confuzzled. I’m seeing, “this happens all the time” … “it’s normal” … so, I’m glad to see I’m not THE WEIRD ONE.
Thanks for the examples @ 7, Jim. I’ll have to read those too.
What’s the right thing to do if you actually use an idea/concept/language, without realizing where you might have gotten it from, but then later the comparison-wizards show you where it came from, e.g., Hemingway?
Is it just a matter of editing in something like the three words, “to paraphrase Hemingway,” or “as Hemingway said, …” Put a fn saying it was a subconscious familiarity or adoption, but now the source has been found? or what’s the best thing to do/say?