Writer and plagiarist. Same thing.

That New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd plagiarized Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo cannot be denied....

Bad, Dowd, bad.

[From Having confessed to lifting Josh Marshall's copy, the Times' Maureen Dowd almost sets things right. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine ]

The unspoken truth: If you write for a living, you are, or have been, or will be, a plagiarist. I guarantee it.

At some time in your career, you will have lifted a passage, a fact, even a whole string of facts, and passed them off as your own. Worse, you most likely will have made up quotes or sources or situations. It doesn't happen by accident, no matter what Maureen wants you to think. It is done willfully, and with a sweaty palm.

It was done because the clock was ticking and you needed a fact or a quote to fill out a story, and your source hadn't called you back. It probably was done on little, minor stories that didn't draw much of the editor's attention. But it was rarely done on those big, black-headline stories that people would talk about for days. Those facts, those quotes, were nailed down solid. Reporters could be lazy, but they've rarely been stupid. At least not stupid in that way.

I'm sure plagiarism was a lot more prevalent back in the old days, before everything was on the Internet and before there were computer programs to check even the most obscure writer's work. Any old time journalist could give you the names of reporters who took thievery to award-winning heights.

I fired two reporters for plagiarism, fired them on the spot, no appeal, just pack your stuff and punch the down button on the elevator. Now. Fired them even though I knew that every writer, at one time or another, had done something very similar.

–Paul Knue