NY Times columnist Dowd faces plagiarism charge

NEW YORK (AP) - "New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has admitted to using a paragraph virtually word-for-word from a prominent liberal blogger without attribution.

Dowd acknowledged the error in an e-mail to the Huffington Post on Sunday, the Web site reported.

• The Times corrected her column online to give proper credit for the material to Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall.

The newspaper is expected to issue a formal correction Monday."...Breitbart via the Drudge Report

• Blogger's version via Newsbusters:

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

• Dowd's version:

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

• In an update, as reported by Newsbusters and others, Dowd says the words were spoken to her by a friend in conversation, that she hadn't obtained them from the blogger.

(Numbers of persons who label themselves "journalists" are making the easy transition to government these days. There's really no cause for worry should any encounter rough spots in their media gig). sm

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