The Plagiarism That Never Happened

[What this whole Rene Amy affair has driven home to me is how our much the way we receive news has changed, forever!

And that is, newspapers are now just like coffee-table books once were: colorful, pretty, lively documents to glanced at throughout the week, kind of like Ladies Home Journal used to be, while blogs, listservs and e-groups are where we look for our "real" news.

The problem with this type of writing is that it is way too hurried (typos and errors are frequent), way too personal, and much more virulent than newspaper reporting. When this type of writing becomes news, watch out!

Think about it. Rene Amy starts a listserv in Pasadena, California, that became “The” authoritative source for information on PUSD by our city's newspapers! Mistakes were bound to happen, and did. Here is just one.]

First published here on Saturday, December 8, 2007

excerpt:
Another point here, many of us who consider ourselves religious would question whether it is even possible to plagiarize a Sermon. How then could the scriptures ever have been written??

the plagiarism that never happened
by Virginia Hoge

With our papers proclivity to source articles from Rene Amy's blog there have been many, many times over the years when they publish information about PUSD that is not accurate, that is false.

Both of our papers spend little to no time verifying the "information" they lift off Amy's blog and trust him to do accurate research and all of the fact checking! Mistakes are guaranteed to happen and they often do.

Because Rene Amy has an Agenda, and that "agenda" sure as heck is NOT supporting PUSD.

Here is but one example:

A year ago, in April of 2006, Dr. Percy Clark - then superintendent of schools for the Pasadena Unified School District - was asked by the Pasadena Weekly to write an opinion piece editorial. Despite the long acrimonious relationship the paper had exhibited against PUSD, Clark responded with a column entitled "Kasserian Ingera: Children Come First Except in the United States".

Once published, Rene Amy (their sometimes columnist and constant companion) ran the article through a number of search engines and declared that the column had "plagiarized" a 1991 sermon by Unitarian minister Rev. Patrick O'Neill of Wilmington, Delaware.

The papers had a field day with this one. The Star News spread it across their front page in an article entitled "CLARK ACCUSED OF PLAGIARISM" written by Gary Scott, then staff writer for education at the paper.

excerpt:
"An opinion piece editorial written by PUSD Superintendent Percy Clark for a local newspaper bears a striking resemblance to a sermon given years ago by a Unitarian minister".

Scott, has his own writing style which is evident here and he calls in another verifier:

"If I had a student turn an essay like this in, clearly drawn from a source without proper citation of that source, I'd consider it plagiarism," said Kathleen Fitzpatrick, an associate professor of English and Media Studies at Pomona College in Claremont". [ouch!]

Clark was "busted" and the papers had landed pay-dirt.

Ulrich, seemed to be at first, caught off-guard when a victorious Amy showed up at his offices, looking for congratulations on his detective/smeer work. [can you imagine this scene...]

- from Uhrich's 5/04/06 editorial column:
"Amy tipped off every reporter he could think of and even visited the Weekly offices Thursday morning to tell us all about what he had “learned” about Clark’s column".

Quickly however (in the same editorial) Uhrich turned it around into his standard bash-journalism. Like his colleague Larry Wilson at the Pasadena Star News, Uhrich is a master of clumsy (as in transparently serving another objective) bash-journalism:

"I generally expect people who write for us, especially non-journalists and public officials, to do their homework before turning something in".

Uhrich regurgitated this dirt [after all, Uhrich knows good "dirt" when he sees it and often uses a right-wing blog tactic of spreading a simple "concept" through an insane amount of repeat] over a year after Henderson's article was published in a editorial entitled: Get off the phone!

excerpt:
"We don't want to keep beating a dead horse and jump all over disgraced former schools Superintendent Percy Clark one more time..... Even though he was hounded from his post in November after plagiarizing a column for the Weekly* the previous May"

At the end of that same, over-burdened column, Uhrich gives out the private number - and then urges readers to call and hassle Clark (which, believe me, a few local nuts actually did this) AND he gives out the private home phone numbers of four other school board members! (again, urging his readers to call and harass them).

Uhrich is the classic right-wing bully.

In a stunning investigative piece (Henderson's hallmark) journalist Susan Henderson unveiled that ALL of the material in Clark's article was in public domain.

Media Attacks on Dr. Percy Clark Questioned by Community

Percy Clark's opinion piece editorial for the Pasadena Weekly was NEVER plagiarism. Yet our papers have NEVER printed a retraction or apology to the community. Instead, they are STILL using it as "ammunition" to attack PUSD with.

A point needs to be made here is that PUSD is our local public school district which houses thousands of our city's children from the age of 4. These are "our" schools that need our support, not hostility. This sort of gleeful relaying of slander is wrong!

Another point here, many of us who consider ourselves religious would question whether it is even possible to plagiarize a Sermon. How then could the scriptures ever have been written??