Journalism Debate Rages, Disappears, Confusing Everyone

Plagiarism claim hits bearded columnist

First it was Cohen v. Mickey; Is Cohen v. Casey next ? Cohen Mum, Campbell Silent; Fox News Pundits Unable To Make Sense of Wacky Decision-Making; Former Colleague Defends The Mick...Chron's April Surprise: They Go To The BLOG Card!

PLUS:Easter egg hunt goes down after Saul Alinsky-style pressure ... LJ downtown business scene changing ... Oysters on the Half-Shell @ Top China Buffet ... Good guy pharmacist M.I.A. ... Merkel Endorsement By B'port News Has ZERO Effect

HOUSTON CHRONICLE "EDITOR" JEFF COHEN is getting some international coverage for his public spanking of noted sports columnist Mickey Herskowitz.

We assume that was the goal. What else could it be?

Cohen docked Mickey a month's pay for not using "new" material in a column he penned on UCLA basketball coaching legend John Wooden. The "old" column material that Mickey used was ONLY 14 years old (probably yellowing around the edges by now) and had appeared in the dead daily newspaper that the Chronicle bought out, ie. The Houston Post ( you know, the one that kept changing its "look" until owner Dean Singleton said "Forget it, I'll take the money and run, Yippeee!")

Anyway, the media roundtable discussion that appears on the Fox News Channel chewed on the Cohen-Herskowitz journalism ethics question for awhile last weekend.

Despite the media's willingness to eat its own, it appeared no one could make heads or tails of the situation. None of the nattering nabobs came down solidly on either side of the issue, which is sort of newsworthy in itself.

Former New York mag media maven Michael Wolfe suggested Herskowitz's contract calls for him to provide "new" material.

As opposed to getting paid for "old" material, this sounds reasonable.

Even so, the point we were all het up about when we first broke the story in a worldwide exclusive (as far as we know, allegedly) is that Cohen should have just called Herskowitz into his office and talked to him about it. Problem fixed!

BUT NO!

Cohen ordered a story published on Page 2 of the Sunday edition.

Herskowitz deserves better treatment. The guy's a legend. He's been the best sportwriter in Houston for the last 40 years.

Is it all about Cohen burnishing his ethical credentials in the post-Jason Blair media whirl? Someone tell us, please!

If this style of editorship is designed to make Cohen the brightest star in the Hearst Newspaper Editor galaxy, that's impossible. IMPOSSIBLE!

Unless, of course, Cohen:
1. Marries a hot, though aging, movie star.
2. Suffers serious injury when movie star wife treats him to an up close visit with an exotic zoo animal.
3. Earns some serious hard news credentials.

(Explanation: we're referencing San Francisco Chron Editor Philip Bronstein, once but no longer married to Sharon Stone, who was attacked by some kinda weird lizard creature at the zoo after Sharon stupidly pulled some strings to arrange an inside-the-cage tet-a-tet. Bronstein was a foreign correspondent before his ascent to editor status and was even nominated for a Pulitzer, something the Chron has never snagged.)

For that matter, San Antonio Editor Rob Rivard has Cohen beat handsdown as far as hard-core newsman experience, after his years at the Dallas Times Herald (pre-Dean Singleton), which, of course, no longer exists after the MediaNews years, and a tour with a national news mag ( Newsweek, if memory serves.)

But back to Cohen v. Herskowitz ...

Chronicle "Reader Representative" James T. Campbell hasn't published anything explaining that a reader in Bumduck, TX wrote in to complain about being exposed to recycled observations about John Wooden in Mickey's column.

So who complained? Who's mad (besides Cohen)?

How did this journalistic transgression come to light? Howsabout a little transparency about the journalism policing process, or is it all about a public display of the "new, tough editor" whipping the Chron troops into place with his riding crop?

NOW COMES Houston blogger Kevin Whited, who has weighed in with a plagiarism case against Cohen's hand-picked Metro columnist Rick Casey.

Whited, whose blog won the coveted "best blog" award from The Houston Press, says Herskowitz is not guilty of plagiarism, but Casey is!

He says he has forwarded his complaint to Chron Reader Representative Campbell (who wears a bowtie sometimes) and is awaiting a reply. We hope Kevin's still not sitting by the phone because the callback could be a long time coming.

Here's what Whited has to say.

We don't buy it. But if you're fascinated with the whole is-it-or-is-it-not plagiarism thing, enjoy. We blog, you decide.

"Borrowing," material from other sources without attribution is par for the course in the news biz, especially TV. It's just a given fact of life. Reporters are under tremendous time pressure that range from getting home in time for The Simpsons to beating the Happy Hour cutoff at Hector's Bar & Taqueria. Borrowing from your old moldy columns certainly has never raised the public's hackles, though it's probably best to change the syntax and toss in a few fresh adverbs.

Nevertheless, this latest development is semi-amusing, since Cohen has told staffers that one of his strongest management traits is his great insight into the column-writing genre. Cohen knows Casey from his days at The San Antonio Light, the now-dead Hearst-owned daily paper that Hearst shut down in order to take over the Number 1 paper in the Alamo City, the Express-News, once owned by Rupert Murdoch, the founder of Fox News Channel.

To be fair, which is the journalistically ethical way to be at all times, we'll be the first to say Casey is a columnist who stirs the pot with a lot more vigor than the guy he replaced, Thom Marshall, who slid back over to writing warm fuzzies for the browbeaten, wimpering City Desk staff, some of whom have resorted to sleeping pills to get decent night's REM sleep during the reign of Cohen.

So what if golden boy Casey borrowed liberally from a copyrighted Washington Post story? Placing that one acknowledgment to the WP, at the back of a sentence several grafs into the column, gets him off the hook in the eyes of 99 percent of this great land's Journalism professors, who dutifully train waves after waves of of J students. of which 50 percent will be desperately seeking PR jobs before their hair turns gray or starts falling out upon their PC keyboards.

So, our prediction is, Whited's claim against Casey will not be acknowledged or written about by the Chronicle's overseers. It's unfortunate they didn't handle Herskowitz the same way. It just made them look silly and mean-spirited.
The Chron has, however, decided to embrace the Weblog Fad rather than cowering in fear from it, which heretofore has been their official stance. They started a "blog" on their Web site, but were sure to ethically explain to all readers that its contents did not, in any way whatsoever, reflect the opinion of the newspaper, which is a VERY, VERY big relief to EVERYONE. There is no implied endorsement by the Chron of the blogger's thoughts, opinions or inferences; nor is the paper standing behind the reporting of ANY oveheard conversations. Got it? Good.
(Ed. Note: Casey published a clarification on 4-14-04 and apologized to anyone who was confused by his near-breach of plagiarism standards. He has not been docked any pay, so far as we can determine. He remains bearded.)

EMAIL About Cohen v. Herskowitz

(Ed. Note: A former co-worker of Herskowitz, both at The Houston Post and The Houston Chronicle, sent a reaction email, which we quote, in part, and carefully edit due to off-color language.)
"JEZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!
Where do I start?
I can't believe that Mickey H. didn't tell Jeff Cohen to ... hoist him
self on his hooked hands. Mickey is a class guy and a phenom writer. The
Chron is lucky to have him grace their grey, uninteresting rag.
I'm embarassed for Mickey if he has fallen so low that he is forced to take
this kind of (Ed. Note --rhymyes w/ hit, starts with the letter s) ...
Sounds like Jeff attended the Dave Bergin (sic) workshop on how to act like a total
(Ed. Note---rhymes with manhole but begins with the letter a) while believing you are god's gift to journalism.

Do people like Cohen ever get fragged?"

(Name Withheld Cause We Forgot To Ask Permission)

Easter egg hunt, updated

The 11-year-old neighbor who was rebuffed in his request for another Easter egg hunt got one anyway on Sunday. We caved, but with good reason.

It went down like this.
He and his two younger siblings staged a picket in the front yard of The B'port News.
We kid you not.
They fashioned homemade signs, taped to tennis rackets and a street hockey stick, that said "We want an Easter egg hunt" and other catchy phrases.

It was funny.

It turns out Scooter, the executive assistant to Editor-in-Chief Banjo Jones, was taking the garbage out to the curb when the older, teen-age brother of the 3 kids mentioned they were "pissed" about the decision not to do the egg ritual.

Scooter told him, "When I was a kid and my parents wouldn't buy me roller skates, I made a sign and picketed in the front yard." (This was back when civil rights marches and antiwar demonstrations were on the TV all the time)

This info was passed to Jake and his younger brother and sister.

They took action and staged the demonstration. There was no violence. These kids have bright futures.

We admit we were wrong to try to weasel out of the Easter egg hunt.

Scooter, however, didn't get her skates, despite a day-long picket. Maybe she'll get some for Mother's Day.

Business news briefs

The "new look" of downtown Lake Jackson ain't bad.
"The Local," a market, bakery, deli business, is on the verge of opening its doors.
The building, which took forever to finish, looks like something you'd see in Montrose or in Austin. Trendy, fresh, lots of earth tones and big clock in the tower.
What's next? A Starbucks? A Hooter's?
Unfortunately, The Local's nice look only emphasizes how old-timey all the other downtown LJ look to anyone who does any traveling, which is defined around here as driving to Pearland.
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The Dining Scene

The eatery in the Lake Theater, The Brazos Street Grill, is open, allegedly. Haven't tried it yet. Top China Buffet is getting good reviews. On our first visit, they had oysters on the half-shell.
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Bravo, Yankee, Bravo, Yankee -- Bye-Bye

Eckerds pharmacist John Erskine apparently has moved on. They took his picture off the wall but his nameplate remains. When we inquired, a new employee said she heard he was "transferred." John was one of the most empathetic, friendly, hard-working pharmacists we've ever had the pleasure of getting to know. He ranks right up there with Joe Garrett at the Medical Center Pharmacy. Wherever you are, John, thanks for your service. CVS will be running the Lake Jackson Eckerds following the big sell-off of the drugstore chain. We hope that corporate wheeling-dealing didn't force John to split.
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Brazoria Co. Sheriff Runoff Thingy

Finally, today is runoff election day. Though it's now kinda late in the day to be saying this, we urge you to vote for Mike Merkel. We know him and he's a good man. This isn't to say his opponent, Charlie Wagner, is a bad man, even though his assertion that media-sherriff relations are good was laughably disingenuos (that means "giving a false appearance of simple frankness." Source: Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary.)

But we think Merkel will bring about some fresh new changes down at the Sheriff's Department. Far as we know, we're the only news outlet to make such an endorsement in the Greater Brazosport media market. That's too bad. We like it when newspapers are willing to say who they're for, unafraid of hurting someone's feelings, especially advertisers or unendorsed candidates. It's really all about not displeasing advertisers, whether the publication is a daily paper that costs 2 quarters or a giveaway weekly that has no real "news." We guess that's why the Clute-based daily and other "newspapers" or "magazines" always keep their head down during election time, at least on the editorial page. Weenies.

(Ed. Note: Merkel lost by 214 votes in a close runoff, providing further evidence that Southern Brazoria voters take local politics more seriously than those on the North End. Those Silver Lake voters have lawns to manicure, BMWs to buff & bikini waxes to fit into their busy Election Day schedules. Congratulations to Charlie, who has fulfilled a lifelong dream (which pays pretty darn good at $81K + $6K car allowance.) When he takes over Jan. 1, we hope he'll fix the problems at the jail, hire a techie to make sure all relevant personnel can operate the county's new-fangled computer system (so no one's liberty is unnecessarily taken away) and designate a public information officer so that the taxpayers (and media) know what their public safety servants are doing.