I hadn't read but a sentence when I went into a sort of trancelike state of shock. I was reading, word for word, my own writing. The cover article was a straight lift -- only with pictures -- of something I had written many years previously for a small company that sells instructional manuals.

I had done the writing on a "work for hire" agreement, which means essentially that the company paid me to write it and there my "ownership" ended. But I was sure that the company also didn't know that the material, which they had copyrighted, had been stolen.

How did my saga end? The owner contacted the "named" author -- who now outed, 'fessed up to the magazine editors and offered a retraction. But the damage was done, even though his future article (also lifted from my writing) was cancelled.

Frankly, I have never sorted out all my emotions about seeing my exact words (about 3000 of them) ascribed to someone else. The real argument was between the owner (you can substitute AP here, if you are so inclined to make a parallel) of the company I did the writing for under the work-for-hire agreement and the person (the thief!) who very deliberately sought to gain (credibility, money, fame!) from the so-called authorship.

Discovering the identity of Jeff Gannon -- that soft-ball question throwing "reporter" in the White House Press conferences -- was the event that birthed ePluribus Media. Jeff Gannon / James Guckert is a known plagiarist -- and many ePluribus Media writers and researchers have spent their time documenting, thinking about and discussing the importance of sourcing, citing and avoiding plagiarism. Below I offer a small listing of several of the articles and commentaries that they have written.

• In Levels of Plagiarism, Aaron Barlow discusses and elucidates three types of plagiarism, the type that occurs because of carelessness, the type that which occurs because of coveting the talent generating the phrasing of the original and finally, that type that equals outright deceit: "I have trouble with plagiarism of all three of these three types--in ascending significance--but only the third, and a certain type of the second, approaches (or surpasses) the dishonesty of simply taking the work of another and putting one's own name on it. The others are annoyances worthy of chastisement, but they don't amount to much--though the owners of the rights of works of art co-opted this way might argue otherwise."
• In Plagiarism: "They've Always Done It," also by Aaron, he reports on an NPR discussion about plagiarism. In his rebuttal, Barlow explains why we should pay attention to unattributed borrowings: "..plagiarism is ... an attempt at personal gain through the unacknowledged work of others. Through a hiding of the source. This subverts education, debasing the value of what all students do when it is not quashed. "
• MKT wrote about Harriet Mier's problem with copying without attribution in his Harriet Miers: Was there plagiarism at whitehouse.gov? MKT carefully documents Miers' less than scrupulously-cited borrowings to illustrate her carelessness or, more seriously, her trying to pass herself off as more of an "expert" than she was.
• Luaptifer's wonderful guidance on avoiding plagiarism is always a good read, especially since he so assiduously avoids plagiarizing his mentor!
• Rba gives us an excellent snapshot of using primary sources -- to avoid the grapevine echo chamber and to establish the facts in his Primary Sources. As rba reported way back in October of 2005: "Publishing an article means the sources for the information have been checked at least twice: once by the writer, and once by a team of fact-checkers. A necessary step before the media puts that writing before the public under its banner. We have all seen examples of marginal writing and outright plagarism that have cost large news organizations readership, and reporters their jobs."
• Over on the old ePluribus Media Journal, Charles Wilson, in his Talon News,Propaganda, and Plagiarism, took on the propaganda and plagiarism of our old friend Jeff Gannon / James Guckert. Of course, ironically with the AP brouhaha, Gannon might be perceived as an accurate representative of bloggers at the National Press Club since he made a career out of plagiarism.
  Ron Brynaert, who now writes frequently for Raw Story and is Execuitve Editor, tracked down and did a whale of a job documenting Gannon's plagiarism.
• Again on the Journal, in You've Been Plagiarized! Susan Gardner and Ron Brynaert interviewed writers about their words being "lifted," including one writer that Gannon and Talon News and Gannon had plagiarized.

I am not sure that the AP has done much to clarify its stance, but the creation of original news/material is expensive in terms of time, resources, and money. I don't think the answers are simple and we do a disservice to writers everywhere if we don't examine the issues carefully and closely as Aaron, Luaptifer, rba and others have done in their commentaries listed above.

And a final note. Gathering news is serious and sometimes life-threatening. The AP has reporters who have literally given their lives to cover the news. As Reporters without Borders notes, over 216 journalists and media assistants have died trying to tell us the truth about what is happening in Iraq.

It's a damned small thing to ask that we cite their names.