'Florida Times-Union' Launches Investigation into Possible Plagiarism

By: Joe Strupp The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville on Monday launched an internal investigation into reports that its opinion page had plagiarized editorials.

A lengthy, scathing story in the alternative Folio Weekly of Jacksonville prompted the investigation, which includes the Times-Union's general manager, editor, reader advocate, and attorney.

"I'm always suspicious of articles such as that," said Publisher Carl Cannon, who appointed the committee, referring to the critique in the alt-weekly. "However, there was enough there that I thought we needed to look into it."

But he added: "I would never expect to find plagiarism at our newspaper, and I would be surprised if we did in this case. ... I would suspect (the inquiry) would be done relatively soon, in a week or 10 days."

The Oct. 12 Folio Weekly article, written by former Times-Union editorial writer Billee Bussard, accused the editorial page of publishing several editorials with portions lifted from other sources. "The editorial page of the city's newspaper of record is not what it professes to be, nor what this community deserves," the Folio story stated. "It's a disgrace, a disappointment."

Bussard, who could not be reached for comment, wrote in her story that she'd worked at the paper under current editorial-page editor Lloyd Brown from 1992 to 1999. She alleges the paper plagiarized elements of several editorials during that time, offering examples of four such cases.

Brown declined to comment on the allegations, but said he believed the paper had credited the source publication in at least one of the editorials cited by Bussard's story. "I'm not sure about the others," he told E&P. "I have not pulled the editorials and read them through extensively."

A Times-Union story on Saturday about the plagiarism investigation stated that two of the editorials "contained passages of more than 150 words each that largely replicated language used in the comparison sources." The story added that both editorials mentioned the companion sources, but "did not indicate they were directly quoting those works."

Brown, 65, said he had worked at the paper for 47 years, starting as a copy boy.

He has been writing editorials for the Times-Union since 1982, he said, and became editorial-page editor in 1993. "I've got to let them do their job and see what they come up with," he said when asked what he believed the investigation would find. "I don't forecast things in the future."

Brown, who said he remains on the job writing editorials as before, stressed that the writers have no need to plagiarize. "We spend a lot of time reading and researching other articles and studies and reports," he told E&P. "I think we try to base our editorials on fact, and we have to get them from somewhere."

When asked if some of that research could have accidently been used in a story without proper credit, Brown replied, "That's possible." He declined to comment on Bussard, her work at the paper, or why she would make such charges. "I'm in a high-profile job, and we have people who agree with our editorials and who don't," Brown said. "I couldn't speculate on motive."

The Folio story actually focused more on accusing Brown of abusing his workplace computer to view Internet pornography and of creating a hostile work environment for Bussard. "I really can't comment on that," Brown said.

Cannon said the allegations of Internet pornography use and harassment were "a human-resources issue that had been settled to the satisfaction of both parties more than five years ago," but would not elaborate further. He said those non-plagiarism complaints would not be reviewed by the committee.

No other committee members returned calls seeking comment.