Jim Romenesko’s offense was punctuation; Poynter shouldn’t have called it plagiarism

Update: Jim Romenesko has posted his own account of his departure from Poynter. I don’t feel any need to add to my original blog post (below) beyond this tweet:

https://twitter.com/#!/stevebuttry/status/138095938605555712

Here’s what I wrote Nov. 10, the day Romenesko resigned:

Jim Romenesko didn’t plagiarize and my friends at the Poynter Institute were wrong to suggest that he did.

I agree that Romenesko — and any journalist — should use quotation marks when using exact words of people. But when you credit and link, failure to quote is not plagiarism. It’s a punctuation offense, not a serious breach of journalism ethics. Julie Moos, director of Poynter Online, was mistaken in saying that he failed to meet Poynter’s publishing standards. She was especially mistaken to follow that statement with a quote from the Poynter standards that used the P-word.

I was on the road this afternoon when the story broke. I weigh in belatedly only because I blogged about attribution and plagiarism just last week. I also weigh in reluctantly. I consider Moos and many of her Poynter colleagues to be friends. I have collaborated with Poynter faculty on ethics seminars and have the highest respect for Poynter and its position as the leading voice in journalism ethics.

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Jeff Sonderman joins Poynter: a perfect fit

Jeff Sonderman

When a friend at The Poynter Institute told me Poynter was looking for someone to write about mobile and social media, I thought immediately of Jeff Sonderman.

Jeff starts his work with Poynter next month. He will be the final member of the outstanding community engagement team I hired last year to leave TBD. Other than me, he will be the only one to make it to his first anniversary, and just barely.

I first met Jeff when he was an editor at the Times-Tribune in Scranton, Pa., and I was leading a discussion for a seminar at the American Press Institute. I probably met 30 editors at that seminar, but Jeff was the only one to stay in touch. I left API to become editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette. We followed each other on Twitter and through reading and occasionally commenting on each others’ blogs.

When I announced that I was leaving Cedar Rapids to join Jim Brady’s as-yet-unnamed and still optimistic local news venture in Washington, Jeff immediately sent me an email saying he wanted to join our team. He stood out among a strong field of candidates and I hired him as our senior community host.

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