ANOTHER JUSTICE SCANDAL: My old college paper, The Justice, just can’t seem to stay away from controversy this year. First there was the “rhymes with tigger” racial scandal that resulted in the resignations of seven editors (see my entire October archives for commentary), then the paper made news again in November when most of a press run was stolen by a student senator. Now, the same week of the release of Jayson Blair’s autobiography, we’ve got a plagiarism scandal.
Michael Camp, a freshman writer for the arts section (of which I was editor in 1999-2000), has confessed to fabricating all or part of seven pieces for the paper, including lifting of quotes and passages from movie reviews in the Boston Phoenix, as well as from The Justice itself. And while Blair and Stephen Glass each at least made cursory attempts to cover their tracks, Camp didn’t even bother- he reviewed a performance of the school’s Israeli dance troupe by merely cut-and-pasting the Justice piece about the same performance from the previous year, and somehow thought that no one would notice. Especially not the performers mentioned in the story and the author of the original piece. Just as Jayson Blair lifted a story from one of his former co-interns, Camp cribbed from a reporter, now a sophomore, who is still a Justice staffer. Ouch. Let’s hope this is seen as an isolated incident and doesn’t do anything else to further impugn the integrity of the paper. Meanwhile, in better ‘deis news:
WALTHAM’S GOT A WINNING TEAM: Brandeis actually won a rare sports championship, a conference title in womens’ basketball. Yay Judges. But in less happy news:
STUDENT DRESSED AS JESUS ASSAULTED: A Brandeis undergraduate showed up at a Purim party last week in costume as Jesus- complete with crucifix, fake blood, and “king of the box office” sign- and got into an altercation with another student. The student, who is Jewish, defended the decision, saying that he dresses up as a popular movie character every year for Purim (last year, he was Spider-man.)
Interestingly enough, the student who assaulted “Jesus” is the same guy who last year was impeached from the student senate for stealing 2,000 copies of The Justice. See, it all comes full circle!
I found that plagiarism article in 'The Justice' yesterday and found it fascinating because I am one of the people whose writing Michael Camp copied! He took whole paragraphs from an online review I wrote of a CD by OK Go. To be honest, I was flattered, but Michael must be a complete idiot to steal other people's work so blatantly. He copied from an article written in the Justice itself? That is incredibly pathetic. I feel sorry for the kid. He's probably depressed. My parents both went to Brandeis and were miserable throughout their four years in Waltham.
Interesting commentary!
-Becky
Posted by: Becky at April 1, 2004 10:09 AMwell, what do you really expect?
Posted by: Paul S at July 9, 2006 12:36 AM