Well, I was going to write a commentary on giving to a local charity this week before the year ends on Thursday. That was my intent anyway but it just seemed like most people have already thought about end of year giving or have squandered away money on some meaningless gifts that may make it to the rubbish bin before 2010 is over. Either way any last minute justification for giving to any number of needy local charities may have fallen on deaf ears.

So as I was thinking about a topic to expound upon for my Monday column an email dropped into my lap which just couldn’t go unnoticed. It was from a person called “Jill Q. Public” and had to do with the latest snafu at The Signal involving the apparent plagiarism by one of the papers unpaid columnists.

Here is the email, which appears to be a letter to the editor of The Signal that was sent out to various local SCV media outlets:

Fess Up! The Signal Plays Favorites? Can I really trust your newspaper?

To Whom It May Concern,

After reading your article on Lynn Vakay’s plagiarism, I took it upon myself to do some plagiaristic investigation of some of your democrat writers. I confirmed my suspicion that you, indeed, are a typical biased newspaper, pandering to the left’s rants and threats without taking the time to investigate the “other side” and their potential for the same crimes.

Let me be perfectly clear: plagiarism on the right or left or middle is wrong and should be unacceptable. Ms. Vakay, for her part, acknowledged and apologized for her actions.

However, it seemed unfair to me to leave Ms. Vakay twisting in the wind. As an average citizen, I took a couple of hours out of my weekend to investigate one of your more left-leaning op-ed writers; Carol Lutness. It only took me one “hit” on a plagiarism checker website to discover that Ms. Lutness’ plagiarism is Ms. Vakay’s plagiarism squared! The side by side comparison of the article Ms. Vakay acknowledged using as an outline was a very revealing way to see exactly how the conclusion was reached. I did the same thing with Ms. Lutness’ Nov. 10^th Signal article, entitled, “Public Education is a Liberal Value”   (http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/20576/)    and the article entitled “A History of Public Education in the United States” by Deeptha Thattai ( http://www.servintfree.net/~aidmn-ejournal/publications/2001-11/PublicEducationInTheUnitedStates.html). I have attached the comparison for your review.

Lutness excerpts:

Jefferson believed education should be under the control of the government, free from religious biases and available to all people irrespective of their status in society. Others who vouched for public education around the same time were Benjamin Rush, Noah Webster, Robert Coram and George Washington.

Until the 1840s, the education system was highly localized and available only to wealthy people. Reformers, that is to say, “liberals,” who wanted all children to gain the benefits of education, opposed this. Prominent among them were Horace Mann in Massachusetts and Henry Barnard in Connecticut.Mann started the publication of the Common School Journal, which took the educational issues to the public. The common-school reformers argued for the case on the belief that common schooling could create good citizens, unite society and prevent crime and poverty.

As a result of their efforts, free public education at the elementary level was available for all American children by the end of the 19th century. Public education is “socialistic,” as are our fire and police departments, public health system, public water supply, public libraries and a myriad of other services universally available because we believe in the “common good.”

Thattai excerpts:

Jefferson believed that education should be under the control of the government, free from religious biases, and available to all people irrespective of their status in society. Others who vouched for public education around the same time were Benjamin Rush, Noah Webster, Robert Coram and George Washington. It was still very difficult to translate the concept to practice because of the political upheavals, vast immigration, and economic transformations. Thus, even for many more decades, there were many private schools, and charitable and religious institutions dominating the scene.

The Beginning of the Public Education System

Until the 1840s the education system was highly localized and available only to wealthy people. Reformers who wanted all children to gain the benefits of education opposed this. Prominent among them were Horace Mann in Massachusetts and Henry Barnard in Connecticut. Mann started the publication of the Common School Journal, which took the educational issues to the public. The common-school reformers argued for the case on the belief that common schooling could create good citizens, unite society and prevent crime and poverty.

As a result of their efforts, free public education at the elementary level was available for all American children by the end of the 19th century. Massachusetts passed the first compulsory school attendance laws in 1852, followed by New York in 1853. By 1918 all states had passed

Maybe Ms. Lutness can plagiarize Ms.Vakay and claim that she used this article as an outline…oh no…that has already been done!

I have enclosed the copied web page showing the 94% rating that shows Ms. Lutness’ plagiarism of Mr. Thattai’s article. I also took the liberty to see what Ms. Vakay’s rating would be since this seems to be the standard the Signal wishes to hold their columnist to and found that she only had a 54% rating. My oh my…what are YOU to do??? Maybe Mr. Lamont and Ms. Littlejohn can plagiarize their statements of outrage over Ms. Vakay and apply it squared to Ms. Lutness. But, we will see if that is too much to ask.

A further footnote to this saga is the individual who claimed to be “investigating both Ms. Lutness and Ms. Vakay at the time he came upon Ms. Vakay’s plagiarism.” Perhaps he was so shocked by Ms. Vakay’s rating of 54% that he could look no further and find Ms. Lutness’ 94% plagiarism. I don’t know how hard it was to “stumble upon” Ms. Vakay’s high crime of journalistic plagiarism, but believe me it took little effort on my part to find Lutness’ plagiarism. Maybe the keen, sharp-witted, investigative reporters you turned loose on Ms. Vakay were not unleashed to explore the writings of the left…oh no…dare I say the media is biased against the right? Say it’s not so???

Really, this all seems like much ado over nothing. Does The Signal give your volunteer columnist guidelines for writing for your paper? Are they all degreed journalistic majors, trained and advised on journalistic protocol? Does The Signal provide them guidelines? Do you offer a Saturday morning or weekday evening seminar to guide them on what you demand and expect or do you just accept their writings and crucify them, tossing them quickly aside as you can proclaim journalistic integrity? Why anyone would want to write for your paper puzzles me.

I wish I could believe that just sending this to you would insure its printing. However, cynic that I have now become, I am copying this to KHTS, SCVTALK, and the West Ranch Beacon! Who will scoop this story first?

Jill Q. Public

I think it is sad that some people feel compelled to write these types of letters anonymously. It’s unfortunate that there is so much fear throughout this valley because if you have a different opinion or make a mistake you get eviscerated for it.

That said, what about all the questions that Jill Q. Public raises about some of the content and the authors being printed in The Signal? Shouldn’t those questions be addressed? What will The Signal do about the Carol Lutness example pointed out above? Does The Signal have a double standard for who they will throw to the wolves?

The uproar appears to be, to some degree, more about political affiliations and less about the plagiarism unless of course The Signal holds all its contributors to the same standard. If it does than it should give Carol Lutness the same treatment as it gave Lynn Vakay.

The Signal abruptly decided mid-day Monday, December 28, 2009, to suspend local opinion columns until January 6, 2010 after The Beacon was tipped off and was first to report on Carol Lutness’s plagiarism. Ms. Lutness admitted that she did in fact plagiarize the column as illustrated above and said to The Signal “she is not certain whether she has plagiarized in previous columns.”  Read about it here: Signal Plagiarism Mess.

Let’s face it, what Lynn Vakay did amounts to nothing more than an honest mistake. She failed egregiously in adding an attribution to her commentary. She apologized. She admittedly said she knew the author of the original work and got a blessing from that author to use it. The original author concurred with the explanation. In golf terms it would seem like this falls into the category of a mulligan.

Dave Bossert- Commentary

Dave Bossert is a community volunteer who serves on a number of boards and councils. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.