Posner the Plagiarist

[William Kelly]

Gerald Posner the Plagiarist

I'm sure they are now glad they didn't give Posner the Plagiarist the Pulitzer Prize for Case Closed.

And I would believe that he did it before and just wasn't caught.

Before I started this one, I looked for another thread on Posner but couldn't find one.

How is that possible? -BK

http://www.slate.com/id/2243850/

Veteran journalist Gerald Posner acknowledged today that he copied five sentences from a Miami Herald article this week for a piece he wrote for the Daily Beast. The Daily Beast appended an editor's note to the beginning of Posner's piece today, explaining that the copying was "inadvertent" and that the Daily Beast has deleted the copied passages

Here are the relevant sentences from the Feb. 2 Miami Herald story by Julie Brown, which was about a local murder and estate battle:

The Novacks, who wed in 1991, had a tumultuous marriage. In 2002, Narcy Novack and two others tied Novack Jr. to a chair, threatened to kill him and removed money from his safe, according to the police report.

"If I can't have you, no one else will," she told him, according to a divorce petition he filed and later dropped.

At the time, Narcy Novack told police the incident was part of a sex game.

She also showed them pornographic pictures of women with artificial limbs, claiming her husband had a fetish for them.

Here are the sentences that have been redacted from Posner's Feb. 2 Daily Beast piece:

There is little doubt the Novacks had a volatile relationship. In 2002, 11 years into their marriage, Narcy and two others tied Ben Jr. to a chair, threatened to kill him and took money from his safe, according to the police report filed at the time.

"If I can't have you, no one else will," she told him, according to a divorce petition Ben Jr. filed and then dropped.

Narcy told police investigators at the time that the entire episode was part of a sex game. And she also showed them porno snapshots of women with artificial limbs having sex, claiming her husband had a fetish for them.

(Here's a cached version of the original Posner article.)

Related in SlateIn 2008, Jack Shafer caught a New York Times reporter plagiarizing not once but twice. In 2006, Shafer explained why plagiarists do it and knocked the big-shot novelists for giving Ian McEwan a bye on the charge. See also Timothy Noah's complete chronicle of Doris Kearns Goodwin's adventures in plagiarism.When asked whether what Posner did was plagiarism, Daily Beast Executive Editor Edward Felsenthal didn't dodge. Reading aloud from the definition of plagiarism on Dictionary.com—"the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work"—he agreed that that's what Posner did. "Yeah, you'd have to say it's plagiarism," he said. "I do believe it was inadvertent."

Posner, the Daily Beast's chief investigative reporter, didn't make any excuses, either. And he made no effort to escape the P-word, which writers caught stealing copy usually do.

Stating that he was "horrified" at what he did, Posner agreed that it constitutes plagiarism. But he couldn't figure out how he did it.

He said he had no memory of having seen the Herald story, describing himself as "absolutely sure" he did not see it before sending his own story to Beast editors. But that memory must be wrong, he said, because the similarities between the two pieces are too great, and the Herald's story was posted before he e-mailed his to his editors at 2:03 a.m. on Feb. 2.

"I must have had the Miami Herald there and copied." He regards the subtle differences between his copy and the Herald's as evidence of him "doing the rewrite" of what he thought was his copy.

Posner is no stranger to the story he plagiarized, having covered elements of it for his 2009 book Miami Babylon: Crime Wealth and Power—A Dispatch From the Beach. He has continued to gather material on it for the book's upcoming paperback edition. Citing primary documents in his possession and his own original reporting, he said that he didn't have to plagiarize the Herald to write his Beast story.

But, again, he's not making excuses. He also refused to soft-pedal in any way what he did because it was inadvertent, as many plagiarists do. "The act is the act," he said.

Posner said he's always been tough on plagiarists and has long believed that people who get caught taking other people's copy should say this: "I am humbled by it, and it will not happen again."

"There is no excuse," he said, repeatedly expressing his regret. "I take full responsibility."

According to Felsenthal, Posner will continue to write for the Beast.

"I'm convinced this was an unintentional aberration in an extraordinary career breaking news and doing top quality journalism with high ethical standards," Felsenthal said.

Addendum, Feb. 6: A sixth sentence lifted from the Herald article by Posner has been called to my attention:

"Because her husband left her his estate, she is now free to sell his assets, including their home, his boat and his massive collection of Batman memorabilia." —

Miami Herald

"Because her husband left her his estate, Narcy is now free to sell his assets, including their home, his yacht, and his massive collection of Batman memorabilia." —The Daily Beast

Addendum, Feb. 6: The seventh sentence lifted by Posner from the Herald:

"Neither Abad nor her mother attended Monday's hearing in Fort Lauderdale." —

Miami Herald

"Neither Abad nor her mother attended Monday's hearing in Fort Lauderdale." —The Daily Beast

******

Thanks to the reader who alerted me to the similarities between the two pieces. Keep those tips coming todocument.write("") document.write("slate.pressbox"+"@"+"gmail.com");slate.pressbox@gmail.comdocument.write(''); , and if you're of a mind, make George Packer angry by reading my Twitter feed. (E-mail may be quoted by name in "The Fray," Slate's readers' forum; in a future article; or elsewhere unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co.)

Not to be confused with Richard A. Posner, a real Jouralist with scruples.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200204/posner

Edited February 6, 2010 by William Kelly

[Barb Junkkarinen]

Gerald Posner the Plagiarist

I'm sure they are now glad they didn't give Posner the Plagiarist the Pulitzer Prize for Case Closed.

And I would believe that he did it before and just wasn't caught.

Wow, Bill, thanks for posting this. And I would tend to agree with you. After seeing how he mangled and merged testimony

to serve his purposes in Case Closed, I would not be surprised at all.

Barb :-)

[Jack White]

Gerald Posner the Plagiarist

I'm sure they are now glad they didn't give Posner the Plagiarist the Pulitzer Prize for Case Closed.

And I would believe that he did it before and just wasn't caught.

Wow, Bill, thanks for posting this. And I would tend to agree with you. After seeing how he mangled and merged testimony

to serve his purposes in Case Closed, I would not be surprised at all.

Barb :-)

Posner is a slimy snake accustomed to lying, like the serpent in Genesis.

[Peter McGuire]

Gerald Posner the Plagiarist

I'm sure they are now glad they didn't give Posner the Plagiarist the Pulitzer Prize for Case Closed.

And I would believe that he did it before and just wasn't caught.

Wow, Bill, thanks for posting this. And I would tend to agree with you. After seeing how he mangled and merged testimony

to serve his purposes in Case Closed, I would not be surprised at all.

Barb :-)

Posner is a slimy snake accustomed to lying, like the serpent in Genesis.

It is amazing that Posner was not mention before Bill. I have always loved this review on Amazon for Case Closed.

This book is not only tendentious garbage -- it is dangerous as well. All of Posner's deceptive shaping of the evidence depends entirely on the reader not knowing a damn thing about the case. He is a good writer -- what with all the help of those knowing, anti-conspiracy mongers over at Random House. And there is genius in the book -- a genius worthy of a combination of Sammy Glick and Joseph Goebbels. Read carefully, all of Posner's sources are revealed to be official ones -- current or former members of governments, agencies, police forces, courts. And all sources that he attacks are citizens -- and there are thousands of non-governmental sources in this case who provide a mountain of evidence for conspiracy. Posner trashes every one he can get his tricky hands on. So pro-conspiracy witnesses are not just mistaken, they are insane, drunkards, abusers, liars, publicity hounds (unlike himself, of course), grudge holders, folks with hidden agendas (again, unlike all those intelligence agents he believes in so devoutly). Let the reader beware: this is State Propaganda at its most clever and diabolical, and the purpose of the book is to convince the reader that only losers believe in conspiracies, those who have not succeeded in this greatest of all possible societies. Sour grapes, in other words. Gerald Posner -- the soul of the Nineties

Edited February 6, 2010 by Peter McGuire

[David S. Brownlee]

Posner is a slimy snake accustomed to lying, like the serpent in Genesis.

Posner is a company man.

By that I don't mean CIA especially...I grew up in a unionized coal community...everybody knew about "company men"...kinda like scabs.

[Bernice Moore]

THANKS BILL...HERE'S ONE FOR YOU AND..WHOMEVER THAT ABOUT SAYS IT ALL....BEST ..B

Edited September 8, 2010 by Bernice Moore

[William Kelly]

Feb. 4. BK: "And I would believe that he did it before and just wasn't caught."

Case reopened: reviewing new examples of plagiarism by the Daily Beast’s Gerald Posner

http://www.slate.com/id/2243991/pagenum/all/

<H1 style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 7.5pt 0in 3.75pt">More Posner PlagiarismVeteran reporter Gerald Posner is a repeat offender.</H1>By Jack Shafer

Last week, a reader tipped me to an instance of potential plagiarism by Gerald Posner in the Daily Beast, for which Posner is chief investigative reporter. After I called the plagiarism to the attention of Daily Beast Executive Editor Edward Felsenthal, the site deleted five pilfered sentences and added an editor's note to explain the deletions and to apologize.

In an interview with me, Posner admitted he had plagiarized the Miami Herald in his piece—although he had no explanation for how he had lifted the copy. Posner's editor, Edward Felsenthal, also acknowledged without flinching that Posner had plagiarized but added that he believed the act to be inadvertent and that Posner would continue to write for the Daily Beast. (I've <A href="http://www.slate.com/id/2243991/sidebar/2243992/">saved a copy of the unexpurgated article.)

But this isn't the only example of Posner pinching copy without attribution. Slate reader Gregory Gelembuik and I have uncovered additional examples of plagiarism by Posner in the Daily Beast from the Texas Lawyer, a Miami Herald blog, a Miami Herald editorial, a Miami Herald article, and a health care journalism blog.

<H2 style="MARGIN: 12pt 0in 3pt">Gerald Posner resigns from Daily Beast amid plagiarism allegations</H2>

Sergio R. Bustos

Feb 10, 2010 (The Miami Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --

Amid additional allegations of plagiarism, journalist and South Beach resident Gerald Posner announced via his blog and Twitter that he has resigned Wednesday from The Daily Beast, the year-old web news publication co-founded by Tina Brown.

Posner wrote that his boss, Daily Beast Managing Editor Edward Felsenthal, called him on Wednesday to say an internal investigation had "uncovered more instances" of "apparent plagiarism."

"I instantly offered my resignation and Edward accepted," Posner posted on his blog -- geraldposner.blogspot.com. Posner is the Daily Beast's chief investigative journalist.

Jack Shafer, a writer for Slate.com, reported last week that Posner had lifted five sentences from a Miami Herald article about the battle over the late Ben Novack Jr.'s estate. On Monday, Shafer reported more instances of plagiarism by Posner from a Miami Herald blog, a Miami Herald editorial, Texas Lawyer magazine and a healthcare journalism blog.

In response on Wednesday, Posner said he blamed the "warp speed of the net" and his "master electronic files" system.

Concluded Posner: "In the compressed deadlines of the Beast, it now seems certain that those master files were a recipe for disaster for me. It allowed already published sources to get through to a number of my final [works] and in the quick turnaround I then obviously lost sight of the fact that it belonged to a published source instead of being something I wrote."

Andrew Kirk, a spokesman for The Daily Beast, said Posner was no longer writing for The Daily Beast but declined to discuss what other instances of plagiarism were found following the web publication's internal investigation.

"Since last Friday, when Slate's Jack Shafer reported several instances of plagiarism in one of Gerald Posner's articles, we began a review of all of Gerald's work," said Kirk in an e-mail to The Miami Herald.

"The review is still underway, but we have found additional examples of unattributed material that violate the journalistic standards of The Daily Beast," Kirk wrote. "As a result, The Daily Beast has ended its relationship with Gerald and will be correcting his articles."

[Justin Martell]

THANKS BILL...HERE'S ONE FOR YOU AND..WHOMEVER THAT ABOUT SAYS IT ALL....BEST ..B

Great pic! Thank you for that. In all my searches through the public libraries in my home town pro conspiracy angle books on the assassination are hard to come by. Most cannot be found, but every single branch had a copy of Case Closed though. Bar None. Shame huh?

[Guest Tom Scully]

My interest in this is related to Posner's book, "Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth, and Power--A Dispatch from the Beach" The Slate.com piece says that Posner is continuing to gather additional material for the upcoming paperback addition of the book.

I am interested because there are 41 references to (Alvin) Malnik in the initial publication of the book. I want to examine them and find if there is anything new to learn about Malnik from Posner and, since it shouldn't take much extra effort, critique Posner's references to Malnik.

Was anyone else aware that Malnik financed the purchase of land in Valdez, Alaska, that just happened to include 500 acres of land later designated for the path of the Alaska oil pipeline?

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=mal...n&scoring=a

Alaska Mystery: Who Financed LA Man's Land Deals?

Pay-Per-View - Los Angeles Times - ProQuest Archiver - Dec 6, 1971

VALDEZ, Alaska-Philip J. Mat- thew of Los Angeles went on an Alaskan land ... The land-totaling about 500 acres -was purchased for an estimated $300000. ...

http://books.google.com/books?q=Philip+J.+...nG=Search+Books

Walker's manual of Far Western corporations & securities‎ - Page 267

Biography & Autobiography - 1962

Directors (with shareholdings at 12/31/61) — Mrs. Lenora Colvin, Clifford A.

Jones, Alvin I. Malnik 100, Philip J. Matthew 9000 ...

http://books.google.com/books?cd=3&q=f...nG=Search+Books

Masters of paradise: organized crime and the Internal Revenue Service in the ...‎ - Page 83

Alan A. Block - Social Science - 1998 - 345 pages

Rosenbaum worked with John Pullman in the International Credit Bank based in

Geneva with a branch in ... Harvard roommate.6 Ferdman worked with Rosenbaum.

http://books.google.com/books?lr=&cd=1...nG=Search+Books

Mobsters in the marketplace: money, muscle, murder‎ - Page 98

Magazine - LIFE - Sep 8, 1967 - v. 63, no. 10 - 96 pages

Mobsters in the Marketplace: Money, Muscle, Murder Hidden der in all this. On

March 19, 1965, as he was loading his satchels into the trunk of an auto at ...

Full view

[Michael Hogan]

Posner sued...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/gerald_posner_sued_over_alleged_HLVBmws8fkPSMLNca4luiL

[Bernice Moore]

Posner sued...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/gerald_posner_sued_over_alleged_HLVBmws8fkPSMLNca4luiL

thanks michael...b

[William Kelly]

Posner sued...

http://www.nypost.co...8fkPSMLNca4luiL

thanks michael...b

OK. I'll take a risk here and say something positive about Gerald Posner. I came across him several years ago and was not the least bit shy in telling him what a sleaze I thought he was, in fact I was abusive. He AND his wife were so damn nice to me that I calmed down and we had a very interesting conversation. We agreed on nothing; but his demeanor and attitude were quite a surprise. That's as positive as I can get.

Yea, I don't know why there has to be so much animosity, as he's just a hack lawyer representing those who pay him (Loomis, Angleton, et al.)

It's just that he did so much harm to the truth that its hard to forgive him.

And I'm sure Harold Weisberg, after letting him into his home and giving him full use of his files under the guise that he was conducting an open minded inquiry, would not sit down and have a beer with him, but would throw the beer on him if the opportunity arrose.

And now, he's fully earned his nickname, Posner the Plagerist.

BK

[John Simkin]

OK. I'll take a risk here and say something positive about Gerald Posner. I came across him several years ago and was not the least bit shy in telling him what a sleaze I thought he was, in fact I was abusive. He AND his wife were so damn nice to me that I calmed down and we had a very interesting conversation. We agreed on nothing; but his demeanor and attitude were quite a surprise. That's as positive as I can get.

He is also charming in his emails. He has told me several times that he intends to join the forum in a "few weeks" but he never does.

[David Von Pein]

He [Gerald Posner] is also charming in his emails. He has told me several times that he intends to join the forum in a "few weeks" but he never does.

Reminds me of Mark Lane, who joined this forum on March 30, 2010, and made the following statement in his one and only post (to date) on March 31st, 2010, but has not followed up with so much as a single message since posting this:

"I will, of course, respond on this forum to questions or observations about Rush To Judgment, Plausible Denial and the fiction work of Vincent Bugliosi who apparently still believes that the world is flat." -- Mark Lane; 03/31/10

Edited September 9, 2010 by David Von Pein

[David G. Healy]

He [Gerald Posner] is also charming in his emails. He has told me several times that he intends to join the forum in a "few weeks" but he never does.

Reminds me of Mark Lane, who joined this forum on March 30, 2010, and made the following statement in his one and only post (to date) on March 31st, 2010, but has not followed up with so much as a single message since posting this:

"I will, of course, respond on this forum to questions or observations about Rush To Judgment, Plausible Denial and the fiction work of Vincent Bugliosi who apparently still believes that the world is flat." -- Mark Lane; 03/31/10

focus Studley, this thread is about Posner.... ya can't divert attention from the drubbing you're taking on this board -- carry on!