Raju Korti
Let me say this upfront. I am not too enthused by the word "plagiarism". Somehow I feel it intellectualizes the crass act of copying. I would rather go for "copycat, counterfeit and piracy". They are commensurate with the character of the act. Plagiarism starts with the very same people who decry it with righteous anger and I am referring to the breed whose professional calling looks upon copying as an affront but practices it subtly in the express understanding that you are not a thief until you are caught.
The isolation and infertility of thought in these locked down times seems to have mutated into new species of copycats. But as a weather-beaten media professional of forty years let me start with those in my own calling. There is a newspaper which advertises itself as a friend and not a newspaper. It has a big brother which claims to be the sole repository of Journalism of Courage. The editor of the "friendly newspaper" carries the aura of a refined intellectual but time and again the mask falls. His self-cultivated image as the practitioner of fearless and cerebral journalism took a beating when he was abruptly asked by his "friendly" management to withdraw an editorial he wrote with so much conviction. The "friendly" newspaper did not bother to tell its valued reader friends why it withdrew an editorial published in the earlier edition was junked in the next. Our respected editor was undaunted. He recently translated -- word-to-word -- a longish tweet by Andrew Lilico, a columnist of The Guardian. It did not occur to his erudite and reflective mind that there is a social media which makes a journalist out of every Tom, Dick and Harry and Jane and Jill. The lid was off in no time but our editor is made of sterner stuff. He carried on as if nothing had happened. But of course, this is not about this one person. It is now a global affliction where anyone can be a stakeholder in your intellectual property. Now the politicians are counterfeiting journalists by claiming their ownership of posts and memes whose original composer you may never know.
Until mid-80s, my idea of copying was limited to desperate students who banked on the intelligence of the vicinity students while writing their answers papers. The first hint at plagiarizing came when some of my seniors in the profession subtly hinted at it. There was no internet then. The editors were privileged to get all national and some international dailies. The lesser mortals in the newsroom never got to read those unless they sought them. I particularly remember a colleague who had a crooked smile on his face while telling the office peon "Agar editor sahab ka editorial likhna ho gaya ho to bade papers leke aao bhai." No one said anything. People just giggled.
One colleague who could not write one sentence straight once wrote a Middle article. All of us had a nagging doubt he had lifted it but no one was vocal. The chief editor held back the piece for almost a fortnight in the hope that the original might be found but then finally gave the benefit of doubt to him. A couple of days later the editor in-charge of Letters column received a nasty letter from an 80-year-old Parsi gentleman demanding to know if O Henry was reborn after 75 years. Our smart colleague had copied a O Henry short story verbatim with just one change. Counterfeiting Pounds, Shillings to Rupees and Paise. The editor gave him a dressing down in front of the staff in the newsroom and a long sermon on newspaper ethics and integrity. Our guy just laughed it off. And to cop it all, this happened when the colleague had ordered samosas and chai to celebrate the publication of a "great literary piece". To this day, I can't forget the shameless smile on his face as he munched samosa while listening to the rebuke from his boss. That he was a post-graduate in English Literature gave the episode an extraordinary twist.
Bigger copycats than him have happened since. Names do not matter. These are scribes who fell in love with writing but writing never fell in love with them. If you think this is an original sentence, perish the thought. The sentence is blatantly copied from one of my US-based fellow journalist friend Mayank Chhaya's blog on Chetan Bhagat. My honesty drives from my conviction that all originality is undetected plagiarism.
Let me say this upfront. I am not too enthused by the word "plagiarism". Somehow I feel it intellectualizes the crass act of copying. I would rather go for "copycat, counterfeit and piracy". They are commensurate with the character of the act. Plagiarism starts with the very same people who decry it with righteous anger and I am referring to the breed whose professional calling looks upon copying as an affront but practices it subtly in the express understanding that you are not a thief until you are caught.
The isolation and infertility of thought in these locked down times seems to have mutated into new species of copycats. But as a weather-beaten media professional of forty years let me start with those in my own calling. There is a newspaper which advertises itself as a friend and not a newspaper. It has a big brother which claims to be the sole repository of Journalism of Courage. The editor of the "friendly newspaper" carries the aura of a refined intellectual but time and again the mask falls. His self-cultivated image as the practitioner of fearless and cerebral journalism took a beating when he was abruptly asked by his "friendly" management to withdraw an editorial he wrote with so much conviction. The "friendly" newspaper did not bother to tell its valued reader friends why it withdrew an editorial published in the earlier edition was junked in the next. Our respected editor was undaunted. He recently translated -- word-to-word -- a longish tweet by Andrew Lilico, a columnist of The Guardian. It did not occur to his erudite and reflective mind that there is a social media which makes a journalist out of every Tom, Dick and Harry and Jane and Jill. The lid was off in no time but our editor is made of sterner stuff. He carried on as if nothing had happened. But of course, this is not about this one person. It is now a global affliction where anyone can be a stakeholder in your intellectual property. Now the politicians are counterfeiting journalists by claiming their ownership of posts and memes whose original composer you may never know.
Until mid-80s, my idea of copying was limited to desperate students who banked on the intelligence of the vicinity students while writing their answers papers. The first hint at plagiarizing came when some of my seniors in the profession subtly hinted at it. There was no internet then. The editors were privileged to get all national and some international dailies. The lesser mortals in the newsroom never got to read those unless they sought them. I particularly remember a colleague who had a crooked smile on his face while telling the office peon "Agar editor sahab ka editorial likhna ho gaya ho to bade papers leke aao bhai." No one said anything. People just giggled.
One colleague who could not write one sentence straight once wrote a Middle article. All of us had a nagging doubt he had lifted it but no one was vocal. The chief editor held back the piece for almost a fortnight in the hope that the original might be found but then finally gave the benefit of doubt to him. A couple of days later the editor in-charge of Letters column received a nasty letter from an 80-year-old Parsi gentleman demanding to know if O Henry was reborn after 75 years. Our smart colleague had copied a O Henry short story verbatim with just one change. Counterfeiting Pounds, Shillings to Rupees and Paise. The editor gave him a dressing down in front of the staff in the newsroom and a long sermon on newspaper ethics and integrity. Our guy just laughed it off. And to cop it all, this happened when the colleague had ordered samosas and chai to celebrate the publication of a "great literary piece". To this day, I can't forget the shameless smile on his face as he munched samosa while listening to the rebuke from his boss. That he was a post-graduate in English Literature gave the episode an extraordinary twist.
Bigger copycats than him have happened since. Names do not matter. These are scribes who fell in love with writing but writing never fell in love with them. If you think this is an original sentence, perish the thought. The sentence is blatantly copied from one of my US-based fellow journalist friend Mayank Chhaya's blog on Chetan Bhagat. My honesty drives from my conviction that all originality is undetected plagiarism.
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