Howard Kurtz reports on Katie Couric's plagiarism in today's Washington Post.My favorite line is how Katie was "horrified" as if it happened to somebody else! This is, of course, just the latest example of the MSM's sloppiness but Couric's reaction demonstrates the egosim and myopia that gets them so loopy in the first place.
Katie Couric did a one-minute commentary last week on the joys of getting her first library card, but the thoughts were less than original. The piece was substantially lifted from a Wall Street Journal column.
CBS News apologized for the plagiarized passages yesterday and said the commentary had been written by a network producer who has since been fired.
The CBS anchor "was horrified," spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said. "We all were."
The "Katie's Notebook" items are distributed to CBS television and radio stations, including WTOP (103.5 FM and 820 AM) in Washington, and posted on the news division's Web site. Genelius said it is "very common" for the first-person commentaries to be put together by staffers without Couric's being involved in the writing, but that she does participate in topic selection. Her recent commentaries have ranged from the Iraq war and the paucity of female columnists to the movie "300" and many girls discarding dating for "hooking up."
In an Editor's Note posted online and distributed to CBS stations, the network said "much of the material" in the library commentary came from Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow, "and we should have acknowledged that at the top of our piece. We offer our sincere apologies for the omission."
What made the ripoff especially striking was the personal flavor of a video -- now removed from the CBS Web site -- that began, "I still remember when I got my first library card, browsing through the stacks for my favorite books."..
