Jayson Blair and the Westmeath Topic

by Mags Glennon

The journalistic profession, never one held in the highest regard anyway, does sometimes throw up spectacular examples of dishonesty, much to the entertainment of readers. Recently a major scandal erupted in America when it was revealed that Jayson Blair, a crack newshound on the prestigious New York Times, could not be bothered to research his stories. Instead he plagiarised hundreds of reports from internet sources, or simply made stories that had no basis in fact. The New York Times sacked him and the paper will be apologising for a long time to come.

During the recent Iraq war the Charlie Bird equivalent in an African state wrote reports live from Baghdad, only for it to be revealed that he had in fact secreted himself in his home for the duration, compiling his front line reports from the satellite channels. A related phenomenon in Ireland is the practice of journalists acquiring all their research material from radical political sources and then producing an article they pretend is all my own work, allied to the moan that the sub-editor cut the reference to sources.

Your trusty Fourthwrite has also been the victim of journalistic sharp practice in recent months. If you ever miss your copy of Fourthwrite keep an eye on the pages of the Westmeath Topic, as the article is likely to pop up there, totally unattributed of course. Issue 12 of Fourthwrite contained a historical article marking the anniversary of Laurence Ginnell, known as the first Sinn Féin MP. On a brief visit to Westmeath the author was pleased to see the local rag had also published such an article. Her pleasure was somewhat dampened (to say the least) on reading it and discovering the piece was a direct lift from Fourthwrite, but with the more radical bits edited out.

The writer for a local news page obviously had an easy week, a ten minute cut and paste job! A letter of complaint to the Westmeath Topic has as yet not received even the courtesy of a reply, let alone an apology, for their unethical behaviour. We intend to keep our readers informed on this story.

FOURTHWRITE, PO BOX 31, Belfast BT127EE