The Patriot has been caught blatantly plagiarizing from the East Bay Express, lifting quotes and even using their letters page for 'original reporting.' The Reporter, Vanessa Wiseman, apparently rewrote an earlier article from the Express about the Berkeley Landmarks Commission.

some passages and quotes from the Patriot article are identical to those that appeared in the original. Hell, the writer even lifted inaccuracies the Express later corrected in print. Two people quoted in the Patriot version -- who seemed, oddly enough, to have used precisely the same words as when they spoke with the Express months earlier -- told Bottom Feeder they have never talked to the Patriot writer, Vanessa Wiseman, or anyone from the student magazine. For just a minute there, Feeder thought Wiseman had at least managed to do one original interview -- with Berkeley Planning Commissioner John Curl -- until another Expresso recognized his quotes as coming from a letter we ran complaining about the original story.

The Patriot has given a half-assed explanation, calling the lack of attributions an editing error.

CORRECTION: Because of an editing error, the article "Landmark Decisions that Shape Berkeley's Future" failed to attribute several quotations to the Eastbay Express, from which they were taken. The quotations of Mary Hanna,Mary Ann Beach Harrell, John Curl, and Leslie Emington were published by the Eastbay Express. The California Patriot regrets the error. A corrected version of the story appears below.

Come on. They stole the entire idea. They stole the quotes. They stole every bit of original reporting. And it went into the magazine without a credit for the reporter, Will Harper, that worked on the article. This isn't an 'editing error.' Even attributing the quotes doesn't change that this is theft of somebody else's work, taking their research and doing a hack rewrite. Shoddy.Email This Post!