News-Record.com

I am again asking you to disclose online the incident involving Carla Bagley.

My questions are:

Did she copy material from another news outlet?

What was copied?

When did it run?

How many words were copied?

How did you find out?

What actions were taken by the News & Record?

What is Carla Bagley's employment status with the News & Record?

Have you begun a process to examine her career's work to determine the extent of her violations of journalistic ethics?

What steps have you taken as an editorial department to ensure there is not a larger amount of unethical journalistic practices by members of your news staff?

Did the plagiarized material appear online?

Was the material purged from online due to this week's server change? I found a google reference to an article with material verbatim from another news source, but the link to your site was broken. Will that link be reestablished?

If I read the paper the day of the plagiarism, but usually read online, do I deserve full disclosure of the incident?

Do you feel that online readers of your news product deserve full disclosure of the incident?

I still await your answers, as does the entire journalism establishment.

Jeffrey, I understand your desire in particular to do this. I don't share it. We published a story about it in the paper that answered most of those questions. I believe our responsibilities to our readers and to the employee in question are fulfilled.

Sorry, I got momentarily pulled away. Here's essentially what happened: Justin Catanoso of The Business Journal told me that he noted similarities in a story they published on the Web and an item in a business column that we later published in the paper. We investigated, determined that much of the item, while factually correct, had been copied from The Business Journal. We published a short story about the incident on the front page of the Rockingham section, which is where the original story ran, apologizing to the Journal and our readers. The employee involved is no longer with the paper. We've found no evidence this has occurred previously. To distinguish this from some other cases of plagiarism that happened elsewhere, I will repeat that the information in the original story was verified and is accurate. Nothing was made up.

Thank you, John. Given the global impact of Carla Bagley's story last year about two young cubs making a series of bad decisions in Reidsville, I found it unacceptable to find no mention online of plagiarism on her part costing her a career of credibility.

I can rest easy now because I have exercised my conscience.

Not resting so quite so easy. If plagiarism (whatever kind) deserved extensive coverage by the N&R (on-line and in the paper) in Reidsville, then why hasn't the N&R posted/linked on-line the article that was published in the Rockingham section about its own "corrupt" story - true but largely lifted from The Business Journal?

If there was a link to the article on-line at one time, why is it down?

It sounds like the N&R's case of plagiarism was allowed to be investigated internally and cleaned up quietly . . . while the case in Reidsville suffered more intensive public scrutiny as it unfolded.

It LOOKS like that is all about the N&R's competitive edge of being the larger newspaper - with no one to look over its shoulder (except Mr. Catanoso, who read one of his journal's own stories in the N&R).

It's amazing how internal investigations at the N&R stay confidential - even as we read all about the city's "confidential" reports and rebuttals which somehow fall into the paper's hands.

Notice that the retraction/clarificiton only ran in the Rockingham section. Nothing ran in the Greensboro or High Point sections. And nothing appeared on the Web site until jsykes called you on it.

How then does that fulfill your responsiblity to your readers, when the vast majority of readers have no idea what has happened? They certainly didn't read about it in the News & Record.

Nothing was made up? Maybe, but it sure does look like a cover up.

John:

Is the News and Record refusing to put disclosure online in the form of a correction or clarification because you know that Google will archive it forever and it will be a stain on your reputation?

No one in Greesnboro, or New York, or Raleigh knows about the incident involving Carla Bagley. Is that what you consider disclosure?

If she ripped from an online news story, doesn't there need to be an official correction/clarification online? What about the original story posted online on March 27? Shouldn't there be a not attached to that story that discloses the plagiarism?

Why the coy publication of an brief that fails to disclose the employee in question published only in a section of your paper that circulates to 1/10 of your readership?

John:

Is the News and Record refusing to put disclosure online in the form of a correction or clarification because you know that Google will archive it forever and it will be a stain on your reputation?

No one in Greesnboro, or New York, or Raleigh knows about the incident involving Carla Bagley. Is that what you consider disclosure?

If she ripped from an online news story, doesn't there need to be an official correction/clarification online? What about the original story posted online on March 27? Shouldn't there be a note attached to that story that discloses the plagiarism?

Why the coy publication of a brief that fails to disclose the employee in question published only in a section of your paper that circulates to 1/10 of your readership?

Posted at edcone.com

This is all I have to offer on the matter:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:G1JuN-bsvC4J:
www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article%3FAID%3D/
20060327/NEWSREC0101/603270308/1001/NEWSREC0201+Unifi
+%2B+Bagley&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

Serves up this text
"Unifi Inc. says it's got a contract to sell a distribution center in Mayodan, but it won't say who the buyer is.

The buyer has two or three months before the sale becomes final, said Bill Lowe, Unifi's chief operating and chief financial officer.

The Greensboro-based company disclosed the sale in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission because the $2.7 million sale price is less than what the company valued the property for accounting purposes.

As a result, the company will take a charge of $815,000 during the third quarter of 2006. That includes $125,000 in selling costs, plus a $690,000 difference in what the facility is being sold for and what it's actually worth.

Unifi has been cutting costs and consolidating operations to bring itself back into profitability.

The company announced last year that it would close a plant and consolidate its nylon manufacturing operations. About 30 jobs were cut.

The company also put up three properties on the block -- the plant it was closing, a warehouse and the Mayodan distribution center."

Tagline: "Got an item for the business column? Contact Carla Bagley at 627-1781, Ext. 120, send e-mail to cbagley@news-record.com or fax your item to 623-2245."

This is what ran in the Triad Biz Journal:

"Unifi Inc. says it's got a contract to sell a distribution center in Mayodan, though the company won't say who the buyer is.

Greensboro-based Unifi (NYSE: UFI) disclosed the sale in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission because the sale price, $2.7 million, is less than what the company valued the property for accounting purposes.

As a result, the company said, it will take a charge of $815,000 during the third quarter of 2006. That includes $125,000 in selling costs, plus a $690,000 difference in what the facility is being sold for and what it's actually worth.

Bill Lowe, Unifi's chief operating officer and chief financial officer, wouldn't disclose who the buyer was. There's another two to three months during which the buyer will do its due diligence, he said, so the sale isn't final yet.

"It will be good news for the community," he said.

Unifi has been cutting costs and consolidating operations in an effort to bring itself back into profitable territory. To that end, last year the company announced it would close a plant and consolidate its nylon manufacturing operations. About 30 jobs were cut in the move.

The company also put up three properties -- the plant it was closing, a warehouse and the distribution center it now has a sales contract for -- on the block.

Unifi also said last year it would begin considering strategic alternatives, which could include selling itself to another company, in an effort to maximize its value for shareholders. "

Jeffrey, we've disclosed to readers what happened and apologized to them. Nothing was hidden. I'm sorry that you didn't see that story last week. But I've said pretty much what I'm going to say about the matter.

Which is to say - nothing.

You ran a tiny retraction that only a handful of readers saw. You didn't run anything in the other sections or on the website. I doubt you would've acknowledged it at all had jsykes not brought it up.

Notice that when the Reidsville paper had a plagiarism scandal, it was big news. But when it happens at the N&R, Mr. Robinson suddenly has nothing to say.

Mum, that's not true. The correction and apology ran on B1; the original item in question was published inside. jsykes asked about it the day after we published it the apology. The differences between what happened here and in Reidsville are significant.

Yes, it ran in a section read by about 10 percent of your readers. You didn't acknowledge it here until jsykes pressed you on it. And then you said you've said all you plan to say when questioned about it.

And there are differences between this and the Reidsville incident, primarily that one happened to a competitor while another happened to you. It's called a double standard.

It ran in the same section the original story ran.

The other difference between this and the Reidsville incident is that we told our readers of the transgression.

Jeff, what happened in Reidsville was the -- no, not the, _your_ -- willing coverup of your journalists' malfeasance. Wouldn't you say that's slightly different than what the News & Record has done here?

I do agree that it's highly ironic that the journalist who reported on the Reidsville incident has herself been fired for plagiarism. I also think the newspaper should have done more. And certainly, I think JR should have published something on his blog about this -- not doing so makes the idea of "transparency" ring a little hollow.

But at least the newspaper did something when it found out about what its reporter had done: It fired her. And it ran a response in the newspaper, however inadequate.

Those are two things that didn't happen in Reidsville, and I can almost guarantee that's the reason the News & Record took it upon itself to bring those facts to light. If it hadn't, the Review's readers probably still wouldn't know they'd been lied to, and those reporters still might be making up those quotes.

Well, would you look at that -- got beat by a minute.

Chris, please. Lighten up. Jeffrey made an error in judgement (showing compassion for "young pups" who made a mistake) . . . one he has owned up to and more than paid for.

This story is indeed ironic, and does speak to a double standard.

The N&R fell off the journalistic moral superiority train long before Jeffrey ever took the job in Reidsville. If memory serves, Ethan Fiensilver worked for about six months after making up his story. And the N&R is still standing behind it (of course an apology to Jack Perdue's family would probably need to include a substantial check for damages due to the "transgretion" of libel).

Ad hominem attacks are non sequiters, or something like that.

John, the story ran online. Why no online correction?

I have said nothing about comparing what happened in Reidsville to Carla's error. I was wrong in Reidsville to not fire the two reporters. I have never said anything different.

The difference is that no one knows about the transgression and John plays it down as only needing to run in a small section of an outlying circulation area.

I respect John Robinson and try to show it as I grow as a blogger by not hurling insults as I was prone to doing when I first started.

I just don't think it is acceptable to refuse to post a correction online when he knows that AP, Romenesko, EP, Regret the error, Google and thousands of bloggers will pick up the story and archive it forever.

Again, it is nothing like what happened at the Reidsville paper. As I practice to tell my son when he is older,

"WE AREN'T TALKING ABOUT THEM, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU."

I think it falls into a pattern evident at the GNR of selectively telling its readers only the part of the story they want you to know about.

Y'all can point to my mistakes all you want. I admitted to them and moved on. I will be outside cleaning up tree damage from last nights storm. Then I will be hoopin' in the Y league which starts tonight.

If the industry can live with JR's actions and the GNR's failure to officially disclose online plagiarism they posted online, so be it.

Hey John, don't sweat all this crud from Jeff Sykes.

He's dancing on Carla Bagley's grave because she broke the store about the false quotes and pictures fisaco at the Reidsville Review - which by the way was Jeff Syke's demise from the paper as the editor.

Good riddance, Jeff!

If someone criticises Jeff, he is being attacked and persecuted. But let something come out about another reporter that Jeff doesn't like and he turns into a wildcat!

You've said all you can, Carla is gone, so enough said.

Jeff has all day to post on all the blogs he can find since he's still collecting his unemployment checks from the ESC while sitting around his house in his underwear and watching "The Young and the Restless" and eating Fig Newtons.