A reporter for political news website Politico has resigned after editors determined that she plagiarized elements in several stories she wrote about transportation: Editors: Politico reporter resigns after plagiarism found in her transportation stories.According to a Politico Editors' Note, several stories by national political reporter Kendra Marr "borrowed from the work of others, without attribution, in ways which we cannot defend and will not tolerate":
Late in the evening of Wednesday, October 12, the writer of a piece about transportation policy published in the New York Times e-mailed one of our senior editors about potential problems with a piece on the same subject that was published in POLITICO. Early Thursday morning, editors here compared the pieces, and did see some similarities in phrasing. These were troubling enough to warrant further examination of reporter Kendra Marr's work.Scandal! In light of all this, Marr offered her resignation on Thursday. More here: Politico reporter Kendra Marr resigns amid 'similarities' in stories. And here: Politico scandal: Kendra Marr and the go-go journalism culture.
This examination produced other examples of stories on transportation issues that bore troubling similarities to work earlier published by others. Some of these examples involved specific turns of phrase or passages that bore close resemblance to work published elsewhere. Others involved similarities in the way stories were organized to present their findings.
None of these examples represented invention of quotes, scenes, or other material. Our inquiry did conclude that there had been an unacceptable violation of our journalistic standards. Material published in our pages borrowed from the work of others, without attribution, in ways which we cannot defend and will not tolerate.
