The journalistic improprieties keep piling up on both sides of the Atlantic as one journalist was fired and another suspended for plagiarism this week.
The Kansas City Star dismissed columnist Steve Penn for copying material from press releases and claiming the opinions of other writers were his own. Editors found more than a dozen examples in his column from the past few years.
Meanwhile, the Guardian – as if it didn’t have enough scoops already – reported that Johann Hari, a reporter and columnist for the Independent, has been suspended for two months.
Hari has been accused a variety of offenses, but his status at the Independent will be resolved after a two-month investigation. Among the allegations are that Hari took quotes from other reporters and presented them as his own and that he edited Wikipieda entries for other journalists in unflattering ways.
