Washington Post GOP Blogger Resigns in Wake of Plagiarism Charges

Posted on Mar 25, 2006

From bendomenech.com via Salon.com

Ben Domenech, founder of the conservative blog Redstate.com, was outed on plagiarism charges by several bloggers within days of his hire by the Washington Post.

That didn’t take long.  Ben Domenech, the 24-year-old conservative blogger hired three days ago by the Washington Post, resigned after evidence surfaced that he plagiarized movie reviews before going to work for the Post.

Check out Domenech’s defense against the charges.

Also, see the blog by Washingtonpost.com editor Jim Brady on the resignation.

Also, Daily Kos is all over this.

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Washington Post:
In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.

An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.

When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity.

Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times.

We appreciate the speed and thoroughness with which our readers and media outlets surfaced these allegations. Despite the turn this has taken, we believe this event, among other things, testifies to the positive and powerful role that the Internet can play in the the practice of journalism.

We also remain committed to representing a broad spectrum of ideas and ideologies in our Opinions area.

Jim Brady
Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

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