The dog ate my Wikipedia citations
By Diane Evans
July 2nd, 2009 | Leave a comment
By Diane Evans, Delmio.com
As we approach the Fourth of July weekend, we prepare to celebrate our many precious freedoms – two of those essential ones being freedom of speech and expression.
Freedom, of course, requires tolerance – tolerance to those of different race, creed and belief. However, tolerance doesn’t mean we compromise our values as Americans. A governor or public official that lies and cheats, a financier or corporate executive that commits fraud; all should accountable. Public pressure should side with honesty and honor.
So why is Hyperion Books so casual about author and journalist Chris Anderson using unattributed passages — closely mirroring material from Wikipedia and other sources –in his soon-to-be-released book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price.”
Anderson is no novice. He is editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, and his previous book, “The Long Tail,” became influential in business circles. Yet now, in a simple blog post, he has confirmed the use of unattributed material by saying it was his “screwup.” His explanation: That in the “rush” to finish the book, credits were omitted, and that passages in question “were mostly on the margins of the book’s focus, mostly on historical asides.”
For its part, Hyperion said it was satisfied with the explanation – kind of like the teacher satisfied with the lame, “dog ate my homework” excuse.
Hyperion now plans to work with Anderson to make corrections for an electronic version of the book and subsequent hard copies. The 80,000 first-print copies have already been shipped.
Interestingly, Anderson’s new book talks about the wisdom of free products on the Web. He said he depended on Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia of free user-contributed articles generally considered “questionable” as a reliable source of information, to describe meanings of phases such as “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The Virginia Quarterly Review discovered the borrowing of text and ideas.
Ironically, the controversy has been noted on Anderson’s Wikipedia page.
At a time when book publishers have been repeatedly called into question for intellectual honesty, Hyperion and Wired, for that matter, made it easy on themselves while protecting a financial investment. In this case, tolerance short-shifted the ethics that are sacred in journalism and publishing.
Anderson now joins a long list of authors called into question for plagiarism, with lawsuits even extending to “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling.
In Anderson’s case, his acknowledgments are on the table. Sure, you can say it’s a small thing, involving information in the margins. But that’s like saying a small lie is acceptable, or perhaps a small incident of fraud.
Tolerance in such cases reduces our collective expectations, and the unwritten standard to which we hold journalists and authors. We all lose when we lower our standards.
At the very least, I would have felt better to hear a serious mea culpa from Anderson and his publisher.
