A news story published this morning by the Oregonian on smoking rates is amazingly similar to the actual press release published earlier today by the Oregon Department of Health Services.
In fact, some of the paragraphs are exactly the same. Many people would consider that plagiarism. Other paragraphs are barely rewritten. That's not much better, journalistically.
Nobody in PR would consider that plagiarism, though, would they? More like a home run. Also I think local TV newscasts tend to lift directly from the papers without attribution. And the papers take from the wires. The outre aspect to me is that the stealing is from a release--dereliction of the duty to report (critically and objectively), not of some duty toward the prose.
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