By: E&P Staff While the Washingtonpost.com continues to defend its latest blog hire--conservative Ben Domenech--despite several examples of apparent plagiarism in his writings, his old college paper is expressing strong concern.
Most of the plagiarism examples that have surfaced so far come from his days at the College of William & Mary's weekly student newspaper The Flat Hat.
Today, on its Web site, The Flat Hat posted a lengthy staff editorial, titled "Poison of plagiarism." It opens:
"Late Thursday evening, several widely-read internet weblogs reported that a former College student plagiarized at least two articles while he worked as a writer for The Flat Hat. According to the websites Daily Kos and Atrios, phrases and full sentances of these articles were similar, and in some cases identical, to those of other authors. Ben Domenech, a student who enrolled in the College in 1999, is currently a blogger with Washingtonpost.com. While Domenech deserves the benefit of the doubt until all of the facts are known, if true, his actions would be deeply offensive to us as journalists and as students.
"No one presently involved with the paper has ever worked with Domenech. We are an entirely student-run newspaper with a completely new staff every four years. However, as the current stewards of our campus newspaper, we feel this is an opportunity to comment on plagiarism?s corrosive effect on The Flat Hat, the College and individual reputations.
"As a newsaper, we necessarily place a great amount of trust in our writers, as the number and variety of potential sources make it impossible for us to catch every instance of plagiarism. If a copied article that has fallen through the cracks comes to our attention, we strive to respond in a way that is fair to the writer and forthcoming to our readers. The Flat Hat has spent over 95 years building an honest relationship with you, the reader. We would never allow one writer to ruin our good name....
"Finally, this incident reinforces the importance of maintaining constant vigilance over one?s actions....Acting with integrity requires constant care, but the rewards are well worth it, and the consequences for failure almost unbearable. Once a reputation has been tarnished, a shadow of suspicion will always remain. Actions here and now have very real consequences which can reverberate through the rest of our lives. We urge our fellow students to remember our commitment to the honor code in all pursuits.
"This is why we feel it is imperative to respond to these accusations with immediacy and straightforwardness."
Meanwhile, Domenech has told the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, for a column today, that he is "not a journalist." Asked about this at an online chat at the Post's site, political reporter Dana Milbank said: "What I don't understand (although I haven't inquired) is why the web site couldn't recruit somebody with more stature to do the job. This city is crawling with good conservative journalists with lots of heft. Domenech may be a smart fellow, but he's 24 years old and tells Kurtz 'I'm not a journalist.' I think that makes him the only 'blogger' on the site who's not a journalist."
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