By Klaus Meier
Abstract: The term and the meaning of »plagiarism« have recently been transferred from academia into journalism without further thought. This is highly problematic and dangerous given that, although different standards and benchmarks apply for the two professions, merely a public accusation of plagiarism has the potential to destroy reputations and careers. This essay hopes to contribute to a nuanced debate and thus help to prevent scandalization of the issue of plagiarism in journalism. What benchmarks can be used as a guide – both during research and writing and when accusations arise after publication? What is common and reasonable journalistic practice, and what is a »no go?«
Keywords: Plagiarism in journalism; plagiarism in science; creative contribution; error culture in newsrooms; culture of transparency in newsrooms
Translation: Sophie Costella
The software is merciless in displaying its results: »16 percent similarity!« A shock for any author. Have they really copied 16 percent of their work? Can they quickly reword it before publication to cover up those sections? The use of plagiarism checkers can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it helps to prevent or detect fraud by rooting out identical passages of text. On the other, it works with purely quantitative methods and very striking figures – tempting the user to make a hasty (pre)judgement without examining the text in detail. And of course, with plagiarism checkers unable to detect stolen ideas if the text is cleverly rephrased, they are not a magic bullet. Not least since the 2011 plagiarism case surrounding former German minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the complex problem of plagiarism has been discussed in great detail in academic circles, which are now sufficiently familiar with the issues. Such circles deal with plagiarism appropriately as a matter of course, despite the advent of »plagiarism hunters,« who sometimes question the decisions of academic commissions and create public scandals.
There can be no question that plagiarism has the potential to destroy reputations and careers – be it in academia or in journalism. Recently, the term »plagiarism« has been taken from academia and applied to journalism without further thought – in the context of accusations against the Deputy Editor in Chief of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Alexandra Föderl-Schmid. This adoption of the term and thus the principle is highly problematic, given that standards and benchmarks for ethical, high-quality work in the two professions are, although similar, different in detail.
There has so far been little debate regarding plagiarism in journalism. One exception is the 3/2010 edition of the journalism-critical magazine Message, which carried the front page headline »Wo ist das Original? Übernehmen, zitieren, klauen und abschreiben« [Where is the original? Borrowing, quoting, stealing and copying] and included nine short articles compiling numerous examples of ›copy and paste‹ in the 2000s (cf. Message 2010). The term ›plagiarism‹ in journalism is yet to be clearly defined; the topic is little discussed – opening the door to a process of scandalization without nuance.
This essay hopes to contribute to a nuanced debate and thus to preventing scandalization on the topic of plagiarism in journalism. In addition, it is intended as a guide to the benchmarks that editorial offices can use. It is based on the report by the commission investigating the accusations against Alexandra Föderl-Schmid for the Süddeutsche Zeitung (cf. Klusmann/Löwisch/Meier 2024; Süddeutsche Zeitung 2024), in which I was involved. This essay uses excerpts from the published report, but also goes beyond this, to aspects separate from this current case. It is based on intensive discussions with Henriette Löwisch and Steffen Klusmann between February and May 2024, for which I am very grateful.
For comparison: plagiarism in academia
Researchers quote academic sources intensively and extensively as the basis for academic progress through their own research. Research work, often taking years, thus »stands on the shoulders of giants,« to use the well-known saying. It is thus not academic plagiarism, for example, when passages or ideas are used – only when this is done systematically or deliberately without stating sources.
Journalism: quick information under extreme time pressure
Journalism is subject to different benchmarks. What matters is not research results that have to be quoted, but providing information quickly under extreme time pressure. Journalists bear witness to current events every day, delivering a picture of reality that can be checked intersubjectively and that society can use for guidance. This alone means that newspapers necessarily contain a lot of identical or very similar information. For all the efforts to achieve a diverse range of perspectives and unique journalistic contributions, facts must be conveyed truthfully rather than creatively distorted. Sentences on facts and figures, or depictions of central current events, cannot be reworded ad infinitum.
In pieces by specific authors, standards for creative, unique contributions are very high, be it the standard of exclusivity of research and the choice of interviewees, the quality of writing and drama, the incisiveness of analyses, or the force of arguments in opinion pieces. The more exquisite the original text, the fairer and more reasonable it is to name the source or not to use it. Pieces by authors are made with more time and composure than news production. Yet the pressure can be high here, too, for example when individual productivity is a criterion for success in the editorial office – either explicitly set out by managers or imagined by the individual.
Language alone does not belong to anybody. Nor does an excerpt of reality belong to the person who first depicts it. Intellectual property only comes into being once research and language have been used creatively. As a result, journalistic plagiarism is only found in this kind of exclusive creative piece, for example in reportages that depict impressions of a place without the author ever having set foot in them – he/she has merely copied impressions from other texts. We call it plagiarism when ideas have been stolen scientifically and systematically, i.e., the journalistic work of others has been copied in such a way that the author’s own text would otherwise have no validity.
Judging this takes more than just looking at identical passages and hastily concluding that plagiarism has taken place. Instead, the background must be examined. That background can have many layers. Some examples:
- Jointly organized press trips, background interviews, briefings and press releases
- Brief sentences of facts that are identical because there is no other way to word them without distorting the sense or making them difficult to understand
- Protagonists who tell their story in an identical way in the research of different journalists, or confirm earlier statements word for word
- News agencies form the basis of the fast-moving news business. They offer texts and images primarily with the intention that these can simply be used as they are. Rules are needed in editorial offices to determine whether the source needs to be listed even for single sentences or whether text passages have to be rewritten in pieces by specific authors.
Gray area between isolated technical errors and systematic plagiarism
There is one parallel between academia and journalism: Both have a gray area between isolated technical errors and systematic plagiarism, albeit with fundamental differences between the crafts of academia and journalism.
The gray area in academia: When a long academic dissertation is missing a reference in a few places, but this is not of consequence because the knowledge gained and academic progress made through the work – i.e., the core of the academic achievement – is significantly greater, the dissertation as a whole is not considered plagiarized. Technical deficiencies like this will simply result in a significantly lower grade. However, if it is possible to prove that passages or ideas have been copied systematically or deliberately without quoting sources, i.e., with the intention to deceive, the achievement of the academic work is not recognized and no qualification is awarded – or a qualification already awarded is withdrawn. The gray area in between has repeatedly been the subject of discussion in commissions, in court and in public life over the last ten years. High-profile examples include the cases of politicians Annette Schavan in 2014 (cf. e.g., Diehl/Trenkamp 2014; VG 2014), who was stripped of her doctorate, and most recently Alice Weidel (cf. e.g., Preuß 2024; University of Bayreuth 2024), who was allowed to keep her title.
Furthermore, research work that quotes numerous building blocks of earlier works correctly, but does not go further than this, are not plagiarism either. It is, however, of such poor quality that no title is awarded for it. We can assume that doctoral candidates fail more often for this reason than for copying ideas without providing references. A journalist recently made the ironic comment that, in academia, clearing up garbage is all it takes, just as long as you name the dump. This is the impression that public campaigns by »plagiarism hunters« throw up: They provide striking lists of identical passages, yet are unable to judge the quality of the content of research work and would have no objections to a properly labelled garbage dump.
The gray area of journalism: When an extended journalistic piece contains merely a few sentences or phrases from other texts without references, it depends how exclusive or exquisite they are. If this principle is interpreted too broadly under pressure of time or workload, technical errors can occur – errors that must prevented by good training and, especially, by clear editorial rules. An editorial office’s error and transparency cultures provide an important framework, for example allowing errors to be addressed in an open and cooperative way without personal accusations and to be corrected transparently before the audience. Naming sources transparently in journalistic pieces can also generate greater trust among the audience, as empirical studies have long meticulously proved (cf. e.g., Meier/Reimer 2011). Journalistic plagiarism is present when inventive ideas or creative wording are copied from others systematically and deliberately and, in particular, the reader is led to believe in a creative uniqueness that simply does not exist. Plagiarism cannot generally be remedied by an error culture in the editorial office.
In the digital world, curating – the deliberate cannibalization of competing media – is not considered improper as long as links to the original are provided. The use of AI will make this much more common in future. Our report took a critical view of this development, because it is de facto extremely close to intellectual appropriation. This is particularly highly problematic when the primary source is behind a paywall, but the curators use the information free of charge in order to increase their reach.
Something that a plagiarism checker will not find is the theft of ideas. Here, too, there is a gray area in journalism: Journalists frequently pick up on ideas that have previously been published elsewhere in a similar form. The copyright holder or original author is not generally mentioned in this kind of rehashed article, as long as no exclusive material is copied. This practice is common in journalism, although journalists usually attempt to at least find a different angle. From the audience’s point of view, it is ambivalent: It can be confusing when important aspects are deliberately omitted and less important ones become the focus, merely so that the journalist can claim their own »take« on the story.
For many years, for example, local journalists have complained that national media use their topics and research without giving them credit for it. Michael Borgers (2018) reported on some examples of this on Deutschlandfunk, describing how local editorial offices are fighting back via social media channels. In another example, 14 years ago, Gemma Pörzgen (2010) wrote in the journal Message that editorial offices were running topic ideas offered to them by freelance journalists. The freelance journalists were left empty-handed – but this is difficult to prove, she wrote.
For both professions – academia and journalism – a fundamental rule and recommendation is to not allow the suspicion of plagiarism to arise in the first place, i.e., to avoid text or ideas being copied without reference, even if only accidentally. Filling an empty page with ›copy & paste‹ is never a good idea. A proven intention to deceive is almost impossible to repair in either profession – after all, both rely on the credibility of authors and their institutions.
About the author
Klaus Meier, Prof. Dr., born in 1968, holds the Chair of Journalism I at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and has also served as its Vice President for Studies and Teaching since 2021. His central research topics include innovation and transformation in journalism, quality and ethics, transfer, and journalism education. From 2020 to 2024, he headed the international DFG project »Innovations in Journalism«. Contact: Klaus.Meier@ku.de
References
Borgers, Michael (2018): Lokaljournalismus als Plagiatsopfer: Alles nur geklaut? In: Deutschlandfunk, 15 October 2018. https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/lokaljournalismus-als-plagiatsopfer-alles-nur-geklaut-100.html (22 May 2024)
Diehl, Jörg; Trenkamp, Oliver (2014): Schavans Plagiatsaffäre. Doktorin auf Abruf. In: Der Spiegel, 20 March 2014. https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/job/annette-schavan-verliert-kampf-um-doktortitel-vor-gericht-a-959776.html (22 May 2024)
Klusmann, Steffen; Löwisch, Henriette; Meier, Klaus (2024): Kommissionsbericht zur Aufarbeitung der gegen Alexandra Föderl-Schmid erhobenen Vorwürfe. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 16 May 2024. https://sz.de/gutachten-expertenkommission (22 May 2024)
Meier, Klaus; Reimer, Julius (2011): Transparenz im Journalismus. Instrumente, Konfliktpotentiale, Wirkung. In: Publizistik, 56(2), pp. 133-155. DOI: 10.1007/s11616-011-0116-7
Message (2010): Wo ist das Original? Übernehmen, zitieren, klauen und abschreiben. Cover story. Message 3/2010, pp. 8-33.
Pörzgen, Gemma (2010): Wenn die Ideen von anderen stammen. Viele freie Journalisten fürchten, dass ihre Themenideen von Redaktionen gestohlen werden. Oft ist die Lage nicht eindeutig – trotzdem kann man sich schützen. In: Message, 3, pp. 24-25.
Preuß, Roland (2024): Plagiatsprüfung: Weidel behält Doktortitel. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 26 January 2024. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/alice-weidel-afd-dissertation-plagiat-pruefung-universitaet-bayreuth-1.6338966 (22 May 2024)
Süddeutsche Zeitung (2024): In eigener Sache: Kommission legt Gutachten zur Aufarbeitung der gegen Alexandra Föderl-Schmid erhobenen Vorwürfe vor. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 16 May 2024. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/medien/kommission-gutachten-aufarbeitung-der-vorwuerfe-gegen-alexandra-foederl-schmid-1.7252187 (22 May 2024)
Universität Bayreuth (2024): Kommission für wissenschaftliche Integrität der Universität Bayreuth hat über Plagiatsverdachtsgutachten entschieden. Pressemitteilung Nr. 010/2024. In: Universität Bayreuth, 25 January 2024. https://www.uni-bayreuth.de/pressemitteilung/entscheidung-plagiatsverdacht (22 May 2024)
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Citation
Klaus Meier: What is plagiarism in journalism?. Benchmarks as guidance for editorial offices. In: Journalism Research, Vol. 7 (2), 2024, pp. 192-198. DOI: 10.1453/2569-152X-22024-14246-en
ISSN
2569-152X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1453/2569-152X-22024-14246-en
First published online
August 2024