Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com • Hacker News Board

Re: Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com

#21

Post by rd108 » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 5:35 AM UTC

I'm sorry, none of what I read seemed very egregious to me. In many cases, I couldn't even decipher whether something had been really plagiarized or not. You DO use lots of material from other people when writing a story-- some of these phrases, especially under tight deadlines and late nights, likely jumble into a mish-mash of words and phrases that might spill out while writing.

Even the case of copying someone else's mistake (in the "10 sportswriters" example) also seems forgivable to me... and- forgive me if I'm too generous- just another mistake, albeit this time on Lehrer's part.

Re: Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com

#22

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 11:37 AM UTC

knowtheory wrote: post #10

regnum wrote: post #8

It's not been a good year for This American Life. First their story about abuse at Apple factories in China turned out to be piece of fiction. Now all this with their contributor Jonah Lehrer.

Hunh? I'm a bit confused why you've singled This American Life out here. Mike Daisey is an interesting case, and someone who published a lot on the story he fabricated in a lot of different outlets. This American Life were the ones were simply the ones who confronted Daisey directly and publicly. Jonah Lehrer, the extent to which he was a contributor to TAL, was certainly not a frequent contributor (in fact I don't r…

Prior to confronting Daisey, they presented his work as if they had fact checked it. They say as much in their retraction:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/r...

My opinion is that they handled it well, but 'simply the ones who confronted Daisey directly and publicly' throws away quite a bit of the story.

Re: Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com

#23

Post by keithpeter » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 11:54 AM UTC

rd108 wrote: post #21

I'm sorry, none of what I read seemed very egregious to me. In many cases, I couldn't even decipher whether something had been really plagiarized or not. You DO use lots of material from other people when writing a story-- some of these phrases, especially under tight deadlines and late nights, likely jumble into a mish-mash of words and phrases that might spill out while writing. Even the case of copying someone els…

I'm interested in the amount of text a journalist has to produce these days, any metrics?

E.G. suppose a feature story that is something like 3000 words. How much time to research, synthesise &c?

Re: Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com

#24

Post by rd108 » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 11:56 AM UTC

Lehrer himself (@4:50) on the Colbert Report explained why "creatively borrowing" others work is fundamental to innovative thinking. I would preface this with "ironically", but he actually believes his argument.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/41274...

Re: Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com

#25

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 3:45 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #19

So ... this is the result of close analysis of a single author. As medical types will tell you, one of the problems of running imaging and diagnostics on ill / injured / diseased patients is that you'll find anomolies -- not because they're relevant to the illness in question, but because individuals differ. What is the prevalence of the cited behaviors -- recycling, press-release plagiarism, plagiarism, quotation is…

Taking a published statement from someone and attributing it as if it were an interview, with the words "this person said to me", is not "tidying up". It's lying.

Re: Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com

#26

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 3:51 PM UTC

rd108 wrote: post #21

I'm sorry, none of what I read seemed very egregious to me. In many cases, I couldn't even decipher whether something had been really plagiarized or not. You DO use lots of material from other people when writing a story-- some of these phrases, especially under tight deadlines and late nights, likely jumble into a mish-mash of words and phrases that might spill out while writing. Even the case of copying someone els…

* Lehrer takes copy from previous pieces, sometimes whole paragraphs, and uses them in future pieces. The author is ambivalent about how big a transgression this is, but in 18 pieces he looked at, it was easier to count the ones where Lehrer hadn't obviously recycled copy.

* Lehrer copied multiple paragraphs from a press release directly into his piece. More egregiously, he attributed text from one press release as if it had come from an interview.

* Lehrer plagiariased at least 3 journalists, one of them at pretty extreme length, and another so obviously that he copied mistakes the original journalist had made in the underlying facts.

* When Lehrer was working with actual quotations from sources, he changed them, effectively altering what those people had said.

* Lehrer made numerous factual mistakes, like any pop science writer, but when those mistakes were pointed out to him (including by other journalists), rather than issuing a correction, he ignored the mistakes and then repeated them in future articles.

I found this pretty damning.

Re: Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com

#27

Post by knowtheory » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 7:01 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #22

knowtheory wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hunh? I'm a bit confused why you've singled This American Life out here. Mike Daisey is an interesting case, and someone who published a lot on the story he fabricated in a lot of different outlets. This American Life were the ones were simply the ones who confronted Daisey directly and publicly. Jonah Lehrer, the extent to which he was a contributor to TAL, was certainly not a frequent contributor (in fact I don't r…

Prior to confronting Daisey, they presented his work as if they had fact checked it. They say as much in their retraction: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/r... My opinion is that they handled it well, but 'simply the ones who confronted Daisey directly and publicly' throws away quite a bit of the story.

That's true, but they were not the only ones who fell prey to that either. My point about why TAL stands out is that they were the ones to confront him on it. Not that they were unique in having asserted that his story was true.

Re: Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com

#28

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 9:24 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #25

dredmorbius wrote: post #19

So ... this is the result of close analysis of a single author. As medical types will tell you, one of the problems of running imaging and diagnostics on ill / injured / diseased patients is that you'll find anomolies -- not because they're relevant to the illness in question, but because individuals differ. What is the prevalence of the cited behaviors -- recycling, press-release plagiarism, plagiarism, quotation is…

Taking a published statement from someone and attributing it as if it were an interview, with the words "this person said to me", is not "tidying up". It's lying.

Claiming that that's what I said ... would also be lying.

Re: Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com

#29

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 11:12 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #28

tptacek wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking a published statement from someone and attributing it as if it were an interview, with the words "this person said to me", is not "tidying up". It's lying.

Claiming that that's what I said ... would also be lying.

No; the word "lie" implies an intent to deceive. If I misunderstood your comment, that was a "mistake".

Re: Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com

#30

Post by regnum » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 8:41 PM UTC

knowtheory wrote: post #10

regnum wrote: post #8

It's not been a good year for This American Life. First their story about abuse at Apple factories in China turned out to be piece of fiction. Now all this with their contributor Jonah Lehrer.

Hunh? I'm a bit confused why you've singled This American Life out here. Mike Daisey is an interesting case, and someone who published a lot on the story he fabricated in a lot of different outlets. This American Life were the ones were simply the ones who confronted Daisey directly and publicly. Jonah Lehrer, the extent to which he was a contributor to TAL, was certainly not a frequent contributor (in fact I don't r…

You are right. I should have said public radio shows This American Life and Radio Labs (where Lehrer was a frequent contributor). I originally thought he was on This American Life too, but can't verify that.