Overkill much?

To be labeled a plagiarist as a journalist is a death sentence. You become an untouchable--a member of that gollum-like class who will never see their name in print ever again unless Hollywood decides to make a movie about your giant screw up and cast Hayden Christiansen to play you (Shattering Glass, anyone?) This is why it's absolutely imperative that the word plagiarism be used with special care...because if thrown around carelessly, it can ruin lives.

Which brings me to the case of Professor John C. Merrill from the University of Missouri. Dismissed from his job and smeared as a journalist, the man's legacy of a journalistic career was blown to pieces due to a "plagiarism" scandal. The writing in question: a column in which he had not attributed a quote, originally collected by a student journalist.

Now let's consider. Was this a case of plagiarism? Yes, in the technical sense. Was it an example of plagiarism that warranted his dismissal? Not at all. Plagiarism is like any other crime...there are distinct levels of severity. A misdemeanor is not comparable to a conviction of manslaughter and should not elicit the same verdict. Essentially, Professor Merrill got sentenced to prison life when a couple weeks of community service should have done the trick.

It's a case of flagrant overkill, if you ask me. Why should someone be fired for quoting something someone said, simply because someone else heard it first, especially if it's an opinion piece? I know myriad professional columnists who do this on a regular basis. The only difference in this case was that the quote was drawn from a student publication. Strange double standard.

I myself have felt the tyranny of plagiarism nazis in the past. Asked to write a paper about a social issue, my senior year of high school, I pulled several paragraphs from my own past papers on anti-intellectualism. My teacher happened to have read a previous paper of mine and "confronted" me about it. I readily admitted to it, as all the work was mine and I felt I was safe in recycling my own hard-earned research. I got an F on the paper.

We live in a paranoid society, overburdened with the pressure to appear moral, rather than be moral. Far too often, we miss the point and castigate someone to form an "example" but all it ultimately does is scare the living daylights out of everyone. So now we're all huddling among ourselves, afraid to take a chance with our writing. And that, ultimately, is what is going to murder journalism.