Columnist fired for plagiarizing Pulitzer winner's work

<p>An associate managing editor of a small Georgia newspaper has been fired for plagiarizing six to eight articles written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald.</p><p>Chris Cecil, who had worked at The Daily Tribune News of Cartersville, Ga., for less than a year, was fired Thursday after the Herald provided the paper columns Cecil had written since March that contained passages from earlier columns written by the Herald's Leonard Pitts Jr. _ including a column Pitts wrote that referred to his mother dying of cancer.</p><p>"The Miami Herald furnished us proof he did in fact plagiarize columns," said Charles E. Hurley, publisher of the roughly 8,000-circulation daily 37 miles northwest of Atlanta. "Based on the documentation provided us, it provided sufficient evidence that he had in fact been doing that and resulted in his termination."</p><p>Hurley said the newspaper reviewed all of the 17 to 20 columns that Cecil, 28, wrote for the paper and did not find any evidence of plagiarism involving any of the ones besides those involving the Herald.</p><p>After questioning Cecil about the suspect columns, "he gave some explanation, but none were acceptable," Hurley said. He declined to be more specific.</p><p>Cecil apologized for his actions in an interview Friday with The Associated Press, but he blamed a mentor who he asked to review his columns before publishing them. He said the mentor, a friend who doesn't work for the newspaper whom he would not identify, edited his columns, advised him on the content and sometimes added material to the columns.</p><p>Of the plagiarism, Cecil said, "I never dreamed this was taking place." But, he added, "I have no choice but to face full responsibility because my name was on the columns."</p><p>Asked if he ever intentionally plagiarized from the Herald, Cecil paused, then said, "For legality purposes I don't want to..." He then paused again and said, "That did not take place to my knowledge."</p><p>He defended his prior work.</p><p>"Everything I did was original," Cecil said. "Everything I drafted was my work. Plain and simple."</p><p>He added, "This is the first and only time I've asked someone outside my office to review my work and render an opinion on that. Unfortunately, it proved to be a very huge mistake on my part. I deeply regret it and offer my sincere apology."</p><p>Pitts devoted his Friday column in the Herald to the plagiarism. In addition to the column about his mother, Pitts said Cecil lifted portions from a piece about entertainer Bill Cosby and a gangsta rap column.</p><p>Pitts said the plagiarism reminded him of when his home was burglarized.</p><p>"Same sense of violation, same apoplectic disbelief that someone has the testicular fortitude to come into your place and take what is yours," Pitts wrote.</p><p>Prior to joining The Daily Tribune News, Cecil worked for several months as editor of The Rockdale Citizen in Conyers, Ga., and three years as a municipal government writer and associate editor of the Griffin, Ga., Daily News. Managers at the two papers said Friday they would likely review any writing he did for them to determine if there was plagiarism.</p><p>Cecil also worked previously at small newspapers in Ironton, Ohio, and Hillsboro, Ohio, said Regina Fisher, managing editor of the Griffin Daily News. Fisher said her paper never received any reports Cecil was misquoting or plagiarizing.</p><p>At The Daily Tribune News in Cartersville, Cecil worked the desk and was responsible for assigning news stories. He also wrote a weekly column.</p><p>Pitts, a longtime features columnist for the Herald, writes two columns a week for the Herald from his home in Bowie, Md., and he also teaches at Hampton University. Pitts, who joined the Herald in 1992 as a music critic, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2004.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2005/6/144950