I don’t bring you good news today, in fact to me this is sad.
Brutus let me know that one of our alert readers had spotted the same editorial in two different newspapers.
The El Paso Times published this editorial Sunday January 26, 2014. I am including the screen shot below just in case the Times somehow has difficulty with the web link sometime in the future:
The Dallas Morning News originally published the editorial three days earlier on January 23, 2014. I had to break their editorial into the two screen shots below because of their picture:
The El Paso Times did not attribute the editorial to the Dallas newspaper. They ran it under their byline “El Paso Times Editorial Board”.
Isn’t that plagiarism? Aren’t we taught that plagiarism is cheating? Who are they to point their finger about cheating?
To me this is a new low for the Times.
I should have asked Brutus to write about this because we deserve better.
Muckraker
elpasospeak 
Muckraker, you ruined things for me. I read the editorial and thought it was one of the most logical and coherent items to appear under the El Paso Times Editorial Board. It was a bit odd for the Times Editorial Board to put Bob Moore into the spotlight as a crusader for good schools and investigative reporting, but I dismissed my concerns about that as trying remind the community once again of how fortunate we are. With that set aside, the editorial was grammatically well constructed, logical, and succinct. With all that going for it, I should have known the editorial was imported.
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It isn’t plagiarism if you take an idea and then…oh never mind, they copied it word for word. Perhaps this is what “Award Winning Editors” do nowadays.
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It was a scrivener error.
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Unfortunately, the Times attempting to pass this off as their own work confirms in black and white the attitude, tone and ethical failures that have plagued the Times for quite some time. It’s simply gotten worse. They have no respect for the community they serve or for their profession. In fact, this lapse shows they even lack self-respect.
They think that all of their readers lack intelligence and that the Times can say and do whatever it wishes and that we will not care or know the difference. They fail to realize that some of us see clearly that much of their reporting and editorializing has an agenda, which is to support special interests. In this case, they made the same mistake they made last year with their coverage of the TV show, The Bridge. In an attempt to glorify themselves and satisfy their own egos, they made themselves part of the story once again.
This is a good time to remind everyone that several years ago, the Times also took full credit for breaking the Bob Jones NCED corruption story, when in fact it was first reported by a reporter thousands of miles away in Oregon. No one called the Times’ hand on that blatant self-serving
I predict that if they do respond to this gotcha, they will simply say that someone made a “mistake” and simply “forgot” to change the attribution line.
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Good idea to post the screen shot of the Times editorial. The Times now has added this the following to the online edition: “This editorial was published in Friday’s Dallas Morning News and is republished in the El Paso Times with permission of the Dallas Morning News.”
Funny how the award-winning editor could miss this important attribution. Or maybe it’s news to him that someone in El Paso reads another newspaper.
Thank you, alert reader, for catching this.
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Since the Dallas Morning News is owned by a totally different media company, I can promise you that the Morning News was not amused if they caught the error.
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To be fair, they did change the title.
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Mr. Moore should take personal responsibility for this blunder in a full-page apology to the Dallas Morning News and to local readers. Mr. Moore, Editor of the Year, what would Benjamin C. Bradlee do?
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….and we wonder why our community is known statewide for cheating in our schools and corruption in our government. This is horrible. A reporter for the New York times was fired a few years back for plagiarism, but in this case our editors are doing it! Unbelievable…..
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In response to a comment about the Times’ corruption story in Sunday’s paper, Times star reporter Marty Schladen, responded: “… There’s a distinction between [cash bribes] and an industry that gives millions to stifle regulation. Isn’t there?”
The relativism and rationalization and his question at the end of Schladen’s quote leads me to believe that maybe the people at the Times aren’t sure what constitutes right or wrong and that they are okay with certain degrees of wrongdoing …. illegal, immoral, or unethical. That way of thinking has undermined the integrity of the Times and the quality of its work.
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There clearly is a distinction: One is legal so long as the campaign contributions conform to Texas ethics rules, and the other is a crime. While such niceties might seem irrelevant to you, when your byline is going on top of an actual news story, they matter for a whole host of reasons.
And call it moral relativism if you like, but there’s a legitimate gray area here. Should all political money be banned? If not, to what extent should it be limited? Does an industry which legally donates a lot of money have a right to be heard by lawmakers about what it thinks is important? Is it surprising that industry often bridles at additional regulation? So yeah, there’s a difference between handing out cash bribes and putting up campaign money to stifle regulation.
Which isn’t to say I agree with the latter practice in every or even most instances. People here obviously take a dim view of the Times. But do you think the current statewide push to impose greater oversight of payday lending has nothing to do with our coverage? Similarly, do you really think that the investigation of school cheating would have gotten this far, much less be moving forward, without the work of Bob Moore?
We clearly screwed up the attribution of that edit. Not so shockingly, it’s a production operation full of overworked people and we screw things up all the time. We never pretended that we don’t. But it’s obvious from the content of the edit that there was nothing intentional about this error.
Please people. Come up with some actual constructive criticism. We need the help.
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You raise an interesting point.
How do you think we might be able to help?
Brutus
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I wrote a little bit of a response below. But the people here have obvious word skills and candle power – and I’ll wager that most of you know this community better than I do. Your presence here is proof of your civic engagement. I want to hear story ideas, criticisms, corrections, etc..
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My constructive criticism is this: Make copy and content editing a priority. More in depth reporting would be nice. Readers are often more confused about an issue after reading a Times article than before. Put more in a story than what is in a press release. The press release should be only the starting point.
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Those are all fair criticisms. Every time I write a story, I know there is more I could have done. Content and editing have to be a priority and unfortunately in our business, the resources we have to do them get sapped year by year.
A lot of people don’t realize this, but the people who do second edits on stories and build pages in EP don’t just do that for the Times. They do it for five New Mexico papers as well.
Too often, people attribute to bias and conspiracy what is better attributed to overwork and oversight.
It’s not an excuse and not a very good explanation. That’s why it would help if people would point out grammatical errors, misspellings, routine inaccuracies and the like instead assuming some plot. One of my editors used to say of my paper then that anybody who thought we were involved in a conspiracy has no idea how disorganized we are. That’s true at the Times as well.
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How would you prefer that we point out these things?
Should we email directly to the reporter?
Brutus
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Yes. And if you think you’re being blown off, take it to an editor. Just like with anybody else, it doesn’t help to start a conversation by going over a reporter’s head.
I love reader email. And in this day of comment threads and blogs (no offense) I hardly get any anymore.
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Here is an example Marty.
http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/dust-western-refining-covers-homes-vehicles-south-central-el-paso-3241.shtml
I guess you can argue this story isnt important and thus why the Times refused to cover it. Well, I will say as far as I know they didnt cover it. KFOX is a supposed news partner with the Times so I would assume someone at the paper saw the story and decided not to report on it. As to why the paper wasnt interested, I would venture to guess that the board of the paper is too deeply involved with the Foster family to report on it.
I was thrilled with the coverage of the EPISD scandal by the Times. Especially since the Times had flown air cover for EPISD corruption for years. It was great to see. Sadly the EPISD scandal coverage is about all I can say in the positive about the paper.
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Wow? Really? You want to know how you can improve? That is rich! How about starting with transparency with your readers between your editors and owners in dealing with the city and the ball park owners? How about not making your editor part of the story? How about not telling one side of a story? How about actually asking probing questions? How about not simply putting out press releases and treating them like actual news? How about actually asking follow up questions? How about holding your staff to the same standards you hold the rest of the community to (as an example: Have we ever seen salary schedules for Times employees printed in the paper like we do for school and other government employees? Nope.) How about not sucking up to selected non-governmental groups like the PDN? How about getting a few different columnists instead of the same ones you have been publishing for years and years. How about actually asking a diverse group of experts instead of going to the same people over and over like Dr. Rocha at UTEP? How about an article about how much the ball park move has cost in total for the taxpayers? How about writing editorials that actually mean something and are not simply restating an article that you wrote during the week (Football is still a business? Really. What a revelation!)? How about taking a stand against the obvious income inequality in our community? How about learning when a story is dead and gone to stop ruining more stories about it? How about following just the most basics of Journalism 101?
That should be a good start.
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Precisely. Nice comment.
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Actually, I don’t think I know anybody at PDN. And like employees at most private businesses, we’re not supposed to discuss our compensation publicly – or with each other. I heard that the management theory is that if the troops start comparing salaries, it can only lead to discontent and demands for more money. If I did disclose my compensation, I daresay I’d get some sympathy here.
I think the critique that we’re not always tough enough is fair and I’m sensitive to the idea that we use the same expert sources too much. For statewide political stories, I use guys at UT, SMU, TT A&M and even out of state, but they don’t know much about EP politics. If anybody has suggestions, please pass them on.
I agree that the cost of the ballpark move is great fodder for a story and I’m going to pass that along to my bosses.
In terms of income inequality, I see that as a story that’s on the rise nationally, and we need to be part f it. Somewhat related is a promise I made to myself at the beginning of last year to flesh out ways that exploitation causes poverty. I really didn’t do much until this payday lending thing blew up. I’m open to suggestions on that and other avenues into that aspect of income inequality or any other.
I’ll make one caveat: There’s a difference between a story and a subject. I wanted to write about the subject of economic exploitation. But until I learned that the Perry appointee to the state’s consumer watchdog was also a worker for a payday lender that got dinged for abusive practices, I didn’t have a story. See the difference?
All that said. This is constructive criticism and I appreciate it.
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Marty,
You probably haven’t been following this blog regularly or for very long. It’s not that people here take a “dim view” of the Times. It’s that many expect more from a newspaper and are disappointed with the Times. Most people understand reduced staff, production problems, etc., but at 4 p.m. yesterday, the Times website still didn’t carry a corrected attribution on the same page with the borrowed editorial. Some of the people the Times criticizes probably also have legitimate excuses for the things for which the Times takes them to task.
Yes, this blog has contained considerable criticism of the Times over the past several months. Some of it has been constructive, even down to pointing out how the Times could better handle subscription renewals. You shouldn’t expect the “constructive” criticism to be sugar coated. If you digest all the criticism, you’ll find lots of suggestions and ideas within some legitimate, spirited criticism. You just have to be suck it up, be open minded, and recognize the opportunities. Acting on them is a different story, no pun intended.
It’s ironic that you are so sensitive to criticism given that your newspaper is largely in the business of being critical and judging others. Joe Muench engaged in an endless campaign to disparage ballpark and QOL bond dissenters with sophomoric name-calling. Is his tone respectful? I think not, but the Times seems to embrace his sarcasm, mean-spiritedness and condescension. Some of the Times promotion and advocacy for special interests in both news stories and editorials has been both obvious and sickening.
Unfortunately, like it or not, it does look as though the Times’ coverage and editorial positions are influenced by certain local powers and special interests and a few individuals. That’s not directed at you personally or at your own work, but at the institution.
I judge the Times partly by what it writes and the content of the writing. What it ignores or chooses not to write also says a lot.
Sometimes the truth hurts.
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I’d like to think I’m not too sensitive. An old editor used to say that if you kick a man in the shins for a living, don’t be too surprised if he kicks you back. Truth be told, the most over-the-top attacks are the least painful. It’s the ones that have truth to them that hurt the most, but of course, those you need to listen to most closely.
I just want to see more productive engagement with the community we cover. I know that my work is far, far from perfect and that the same is true of our newspaper. Even so, we’re vital to the community the same way it’s vital to us.
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“We clearly screwed up the attribution of that edit. Not so shockingly, it’s a production operation full of overworked people and we screw things up all the time. ”
When that happens in the community, with some entity that you guys hate, you run a full page article about how incompetent the leadership is.
If others used that excuse you guys would not accept it. Why should we? Perhaps we should demand that the leadership resign…just like the TIMES DOES…
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That’s not really fair. I’m sure we’ve written thousands of stories over the years where somebody screwed up, people explained it, we wrote it and moved on. I know I’ve personally written hundreds in my career.
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Dear Muckraker,
Thanks for reading both newspapers as I cancelled the EP Times.
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The folks at the Times apparently can’t agree on who wrote that editorial. Balmorhea said they added a line today giving credit to the Dallas Morning News, but as of 4 p.m. today, they have reverted back to the original copy on their website. It carries no such credit line. I would have attached a screen shot if it were possible to do so as a commenter.
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I want to respond to what Brownfield said below about the KFOX story about Western Refining’s residue coating a neighborhood. The format of the blog was beginning to make the responses hard to read. I think it very definitely is a story and there’s no mandate in the newsroom that we go easy on Paul Foster. A lack of enterprise is to blame. Chris Roberts used to do some really good environmental stuff, but last year he left to become editor of our sister paper in Farmington, N.M. So far, nobody’s stepped into that role.
If you think we’re missing an important story like this, don’t just assume that we’re pulling our punches because it’s Foster. Email Bob, Ramon Bracamontes, Armando Durazo or Melissa Martinez and ask for coverage. Feel free to email me, too, but unless it’s a state story, what I’ll probably do is foward it to one of the people listed above because they have the power to assign them. Humans being what they are, a note that is laced with abuse probably isn’t going to be read with more alacrity than one that isn’t.
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Marty has made some good points and has stood up to the firing line. If Marty was sent to put out the fire, I’d say he has done his best.
As for readers asking the Times to cover stories, it’s nice to know that is an option but I think we expect the newspaper to take the lead especially when another outlet has already run the story.
Understaffing and overworked employees are a problem. That’s not the whole problem though. The Times has steadily gone downhill for at least the past 15 years. It wasn’t a top notch newspaper even when staffing was at full capacity. Whether that’s because readers did not hold the Times to the fire, or because it was the only daily in town and didn’t have to try, I do not know. I suspect the latter.
I sincerely hope the Times wants to improve. The city needs a trustworthy news source.
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Marty stepped up to respond directly to my comment in which I challenged one of his statements to a reader. I’ve watched him do that before. My perception of him, unlike Muench and certain others, is that Marty doesn’t carry other people’s water. I think he jumped in front of this train because he cares and knew it was the right thing to do. That took heart and courage. Great reporters have both of those things. More of his colleagues should follow his example.
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I say, let Marty lead the English version of El Diario…
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“If you think we’re missing an important story like this, don’t just assume that we’re pulling our punches because it’s Foster…”
Can you please site ANY story involving Paul Foster (or Jordan, or the PDN group, or Eliot Shapliegh, or Beto O’Rourke, or the ballpark) at any time that was negative or even negative in tone while Bob Moore has been editor?
You keep saying that you or the reporters don’t have any restrictions for this or that, but the appearance at least is that YOUR BOSSES do have their noses firmly planted in the posteriors of several folks in this town, Paul Foster being one, and are restricted. (The sweet fluff pieces that you guys do in the Sunday editions of these billionaires and their wives are examples.)
The fact of the matter, as pointed out earlier, is that you and KFOX are supposed to be working together..or is that just a sham marketing thing? Doesn’t anyone in the Times watch KFOX news? Don’t you people talk to one another?
“Hey dude, nice reporting on the mysterious white powder, mind if I follow up on that?” asked no Times reporter ever.
If you are relying on the public to find stories for you, then what is your job exactly?
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Just as a side note: As of Wednesday at 10:00 PM, the attribution not the web version of this article is still the El Paso Times Editorial Board.
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I’m not sure at what level our bosses talk to KFOX and what they discuss. I doubt they share daily budgets – lineups of the stories we’re working on – though. Generally, I talk to their reporters when I see them at news events, which, now that I’m in Austin, is very rare.
That said, we shouldn’t have missed the Western Refining story. Once we get past the primary, I’ll take a look at their release reports that are on file with TCEQ and EPA. I think that’s how it works. I did some of these stories about Texas City refineries when I worked in Galveston. I’ll try to assess the plant’s environmental impact, being in the middle of the city the way it is.
In answer to your question about negative stories about the powers that be, I’ll remind everybody that regarding the ballbark project, Bob spotted that the city hadn’t read its own assessment report and was about to pay us $4 million more than the city’s report said the old EPT Building was worth. It created a stir in national journalism circles that we wrote a story that cost our own company $4 million. And, quite frankly, a lot of people who aren’t happy about the ballpark conveniently ignore that when they accuse us of taking a $10 million “bribe” to get on board with the project. The fact is, our corporate masters have a policy of selling off old newspaper buildings across the country and renting instead. To them, the city’s offer was an opportunity to do just that – and to get us out of a building that was half-empty. They sent in a real estate team and the rest was a whirlwind. To them, the buyer could have been the city or Wal Mart – it didn’t matter so long as the check didn’t bounce.
I think the city council ramrodded the ballpark deal without enough public input and they’ve been paying a political price ever since. And sure, I’ll agree that, as always, our coverage could have been better, but we have reflected a lot of the concerns in our stories. There was no quid-pro-quo between DFM executives in New York and Paul Foster to give sympathetic coverage of the ballpark if the city bought our building.
As far as Foster goes, I’m not aware of any critical stories about him other than stories reporting critiques of his and Hunt’s involvement in the ballpark deal. But I’ll remind you that he’s not an elected official and thus not a part of the daily political crossfire. People on the blogs sometimes don’t understand how news works. We don’t sit around a conference table and say, “Today we’ll write something bad about Paul Foster.” There has to be a story, a real story, that we dig up or somebody brings to our attention. If somebody has one, let me know.
In terms of O’Rourke, we’ve written lots of negative stories. During the 2012 campaign, we rehashed and made him explain his DWI, his arrest at UTEP, his support for marijuana decriminalization, etc. In the last couple months, Bob alerted me to, and I wrote about, his problems with the House Ethics Committee relating to his purchase of IPOs. At one point it seemed that it might be serious and we were perfectly prepared to go there. But as we followed it, there was no evidence that he used insider information in making the purchases and his biggest sin was he didn’t run the purchases by the committee first. That, by the way, was not a violation of any rule, but it did not follow the guidance the committee put out a few days before the Twitter IPO, which O’Rourke participated in.
As far as Shapleigh goes, he hasn’t been in office since I’ve been with the Times. I mostly know him as the guy who has been the relentless pain in the neck driving forward the EPISD cheating scandal. That was some reprehensible stuff, what Lorenzo Garcia and his minions were doing. So was the reluctance of some government agencies to find any there there. I can’t speak to Eliot’s tenure in office, but I think he deserves kudos for continuing to harp on EPISD when everybody was sick of hearing about it. When Bob got here, he picked it up and now Garcia is in federal prison. That speaks for itself.
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Marty,
Thank you for taking the time to help us understand more about this issue.
We try very hard to keep the discussion civil on this blog so I am pleased to say that the comments have been within reason to me so far.
Brutus
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marti, could your corporate masters make your local employees write what they want to sell their building at the cost of journalistic integrity ? “The fact is, our corporate masters have a policy of selling off old newspaper buildings across the country and renting instead.”
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Victor is right on Marty. “If you think we’re missing an important story like this, don’t just assume that we’re pulling our punches because it’s Foster…”
The Times had Joe Muench calling us all crazies while every editorial was pro Ball Park, Foster, Hunt, and Wilson. DId you need to sell that white elephant building so badly that you sold your souls to the devil and withdrew from being ethical journalist ? Hope you all have good health insurance and it covers cosmetic surgery for the wrinkles in your mouth’s that you surely have from the blowing of Foster and Hunt for the past 2 years.
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I tried to address this in the post above. In my opinion, all name calling does is close off thoughtful discourse. I’m not seeing anything here I’d call crazy; I’d say there are some misconceptions the have been borne in the absence of real discourse.
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“We don’t sit around a conference table and say, “Today we’ll write something bad about Paul Foster.”
NO, but every week Muench or the Editorial board had something about us crazies. I believe John Cook when he said that he told Hunt that the people wouldn’t vote to tear down city hall and that Josh said “let us worry about that”. He re-canted later, but Cook was notorious for sticking his foot in his mouth and saying things he shouldn’t or doesnt have proof. However, I believe the 76 percenter’s believe what Cook said was exactly the way it went down.
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If you look at the Sunday print edition, the note on the Dallas Morning News publishing the editorial on Friday and giving the Times permission to reprint was at the top of the editorial. When the editorial was moved from our print content management system to our web CMS, the first sentence was dropped off. One of our web editors noted the error and fixed it. There was no plagiarism involved. The DMN editorial was fully credited in the print edition and, despite an initial glitch, the web and mobile app versions of the Times.
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Thank you for explaining. The dropped attribution was a mistake. Since the mistake was of greater importance than, say, a misspelled name I would respect the Times more if a note were put at the top of the online edition explaining when the attribution was added.
Mr. Moore, I believe the greater point of this blog discussion is that many intelligent, well-read, involved citizens simply do not trust what the Times prints. I do not believe any conspiracies are involved. I believe what Mr. Schladen says is true – that people at the Times are busy putting out a daily and may miss stories that are important.
Should the Times bend over backwards to follow stories that might be critical of Western Refining or Mr. Foster or Mr. Hunt? Of course not. Bias of any kind diminishes a newspaper’s standing. But I think people want to trust the local newspaper and presently a lot do not.
If the Times wants to improve, rebuilding trust is a place to start.
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Bob Moore said that the EPISD School Board needed to be replaced because it had lost the trust of the public. I wonder if he holds the same standards to his own organization? Does the leadership of the Times need to be replaced because they have lost the trust of the public, as balmorhea stated?
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76 Percent lost trust in the Times when we elected Oscar Leeser for Mayor after they tried to shove the Stadium, Foster,Hunt, Wilson’s agenda, and Steve Ortega down our throats. They probably also lost the 76 percenter’s when it comes to buying their paper or advertising. Its simple Math. How much do they make off the 76 percenter’s subscriptions and advertising verses advertising from Foster,Hunt, Forma, and the members of the PDN. It’s too late to kiss our 76 percent ass now. I hope heads roll at the Times and everyone is replaced.
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ponce, its 74 percent, but i get what your saying.
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Bob,
Too bad we can’t get a Freedom of Information Act request demanding that you release the email that gave you permission. Then when you release, it, we could post it online and call it “in depth investigative journalism,” after we remind the readers how we have bravely “filed a Freedom of Information Act request” much like you do with all the FOA requests that you and your “team” ask for all the time.
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Dear Marty, your passionate defense of your employer is admirable as is your pointing out again that you guys heroically saved the taxpayers $4 million. But, truth is that your corporate bosses were one of the beneficiaries as a result of one of the most unpopular corporate welfare public decisions in this town, one that could not be justified by any reasonable economic or financial argument. Putting aside all the academic studies and media stories demonstrating the folly and pillaging of the taxpayer, we are seeing the results of this folly that was rammed on us in the form of obscene cost over runs, subsequent rushed deals with the railroad to fit this boondoggle. Yet, your paper never once explored all the abundant data there is about the drain on public resources that sports stadiums represent and how millionaire team owners take advantage of taxpayers aided by self-serving politicians. Au contraire, you endorsed the deal and the enablers in editorials, glorified the owners and the team better than their paid publicists could. Just reading El Diario’s coverage of many of these same atories exposed your bias. And note, how you have skirted addressing Joe Meunches weeky colections of invectives hurled at El Paso taxpayers. With all that, you expect us to trust what you have to say, including your new commitment for the poor? Well guess what? Maybe if those progressive politicians your paper loves to endorsehad done a better job developing El Paso’s economy instead of handing out our tax dollars to their political donors’ pet projects, there wouldn’t be such a high demand for payday lenders. Seems like maybe you guys could benefit from a good publicist to turn around the untrustworthy reputation you’ve created for yourself. Fool me once, fool me twice… No way!
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ditto
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