Chronicle Captain Flogs Scribe

After Jayson Blair, journalists can't even crib from their own prose!

Phase 2 in the hunt for Journalism's Evil Doers has begun.

At The Houston Chronicle, the flagship paper in the Hearst Navy, Capt. Jeff Cohen has docked noted sports columnist Mickey Herskowitz a months pay.

The crime?

Herskowitz PLAGIARIZED HIS OWN STUFF!

Cohen has told staffers that using phrases already employed in the pages of the newspaper is a no-no in the Rule Book, which he keeps next to his bed of nails in his spartan captain's quarters.

The man runs a tight ship, maybe the tightest ship in the once-mighty Hearst Armada. Either that or the wackiest ship in the fleet.

Never mind that FOURTEEN YEARS elapsed between the two Herskowitz columns. Or that they appeared in DIFFERENT NEWSPAPERS. Or that nobody really gives a damn or even noticed until Cohen, in his Capt. Queeg persona, announced it to the world.

There could be a commendation in this for him. The Eddie Haskell Golden Halo Ribbon with Poynter Institute Oak Leaf Cluster?



Cohen issued an email memo explaining his Herskowitz ruling on Friday.

(Suggestion: while reading the executive decision, imagine it's an episode of M*A*S*H, with Cohen assuming the role of the obsequious Frank Burns.)

"From: Cohen, Jeff
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 5:47 PM
To: Editorial
Subject: Mickey Herskowitz

MEMORANDUM

DATE: April 2, 2004
TO: Staff
FROM: Jeff Cohen
RE: Mickey Herskowitz Suspension
The Editor's Note at the bottom of this memo will appear on Page A2 Sunday announcing that sports columnist Mickey Herskowitz has been suspended for reusing substantial parts of an old column without telling readers.

It shouldn't need to be said that passing off old work as new is unacceptable at the Chronicle or any other newspaper. If it's news, it's supposed to be new.

I'm sorry to have to write this memo but wanted each of you to hear it from me first.

Mickey was suspended without pay for one month.
---
(TO APPEAR NEXT TO CORRECTION'S BOX)
Editor's Note

A Mickey Herskowitz column published in the Sunday, March 21 Chronicle was virtually identical to one he wrote for the Houston Post in 1990. This is a clear violation of journalism standards and the writer has been suspended.
Herskowitz' column about legendary basketball coach John Wooden contained little new information and many duplicative phrases. A further examination also found other examples of short passages in Post columns that later appeared in the Chronicle.
While this is not plagiarism, it is bad form. The Chronicle believes that readers deserve original work. Columnists often draw from earlier writing, but anything previously reported or quoted should be labeled as such. What our writer did was wrong and we apologize.

A long-time Houston sportswriter, Herskowitz joined the Chronicle as a columnist in 1995 after more than 30 years at the Post.
"I can't tell you how idiotic and stupid I feel," Herskowitz said. "I have never lifted from anyone else. I apologize."

His column will return later this month."

The public's faith has been restored, we trust. Call off the plan to form a torch-carrying mob downtown to protest the column that sounded an awful lot like that other one FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.

But what about that meat loaf recipe last Thursday that sounded an awful lot like the one that ran back in '78? And, is it just us, or are those Jack 'N The Box reviews sounding awfully, uh, repetitious?

The Chronicle recently axed the sports columns of Fran Blinebury and Dale Robertson, whose prose finally was discovered to be an antidote to insomnia in laboratory studies. The decision caused barely a ripple as most of their one-time readers had long ago yawned and turned to the TV listings.

Herskowitz, though, is a wordsmith, with an institutional sports memory that predates the Eisenhower Administration. A ghost-writer for Howard Cossell, Bette Davis and other luminaries who needed a gifted hired hand to capture their thoughts, he has cut a wide swatch through Texas Journalism.

The Good Ship Chronicle should feel lucky to have him.

Instead of publicly flogging him with a cat 'o nine tails, perhaps Capt. Cohen, a former sportswriter himself, could have quietly invited Herskowitz into his quarters for a private reprimand and simply ordered him to shape up.