Title of Document: PARADIGM DISGUISE: SYSTEMIC INFLUENCES ON NEWSPAPER PLAGIARISM

A first-ever study of newspaper plagiarism behavior affirms that plagiarism is not merely an individual-level violation of journalism ethics, but results from a professional ideology that justifies copying and minimizes attribution. The inductive study analyzed all known plagiarism cases over a 10-year period at U.S. daily newspapers, complemented by depth interviews with eight of those journalists. Only five of the 76 cases studied involve the acute type of plagiarism associated with Jayson Blair of the New York Times; the vast majority of cases in a four-factor typology involve garden-variety plagiarism that afflicts exemplary journalists, including two Pulitzer-Prize winners. Even when controlling for the fact that bigger newspapers have more employees, plagiarism cases occur disproportionately more often at newspapers with circulations greater than 250,000. Larger papers also are more likely to retain journalists accused of plagiarism, while papers below that size are more likely to dismiss. Sanctions are associated with terminology; public use of “plagiarism ” correlates with dismissal, while the use of synonyms is related to retention of the employee. Since Blair, the rate of case