'Eroded" safety net = shameful journalism

Longtime science journalist Charles Seife was vaguely familiar with Jonah Lehrer’s work before Wired.com asked him two weeks ago to investigate for plagiarism, fabrication and other shortcuts.

Seife found problems in 17 of the 18 blog posts he reviewed. In three of those posts, Lehrer plagiarized from other writers, in five he used verbatim portions of press releases, and in 14 posts he recycled his own writing from previously published pieces. It was this recycling, first reported by Jim Romenesko on June 19, that started the cascade of investigations and revelations about Lehrer’s books and his work for The New Yorker and Wired.

Seife’s investigation was not published on Wired.com, though. Instead, his findings were published on Slate at virtually the same time that Wired.com Editor-in-Chief Evan Hansen published a statement acknowledging the problems with Lehrer’s work and the end of Wired’s relationship with the writer. Wired declined to publish Seife’s findings.

How can this blatant plagiarism happen?

“I think the safety net has eroded,” Seife said. “Fact-checkers are disappearing, the editorial staff is getting threadbare. The mantra of do more with less is taking its toll.

“They made sure they challenged you. They forced you to think harder about your work, and if you screwed up, they kicked your ass.

 “And I think that if he had a bit more oversight early on in his career, if he had a good editor or two to kick his butt, I think he might have become a star that would never have fallen.”

To read Julie Moos’ article about Seife’s investigation of Lehrer’s work, click on http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/187310/why-slate-published-wireds-jonah-lehrer-plagiarism-investigation/