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Showing posts with label newspaper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label newspaper. Show all posts

Monday, 4 November 2013

Plagiarism: An apology from someone with a stake in The Nigerian Telegraph

A result of sorts – An apology
After a long day of making the case about my blog being plagiarised by The Nigerian Telegraph, I finally got someone with a stake in the newspaper to engage me and chat about the issue.
The apology for ‘our mess’ is what makes the apology worth its weight.
The apology came from the Finance Editor of the Nigerian Telegraph.


Our Twitter exchange appears below, and though I asked to use our conversation in a blog, his view was if I must. I guess I should because if I make an accusation of plagiarism and receive an apology, it is only right to blog about it.
Obviously, along the lines of Do The Needful when it comes to plagiarism, I do expect The Nigerian Telegraph to take down that article. I created a Storify of some of the tweets, titled, Closing the loop on plagiarism.

It is serious
Along the way, I was admonished, maybe that is a strong word, advised to forgive and forget – No, you do not forgive plagiarism and it is very difficult to forget because this goes to the heart of the principles that underpin and undergird an organisation and the personalities that run it; it is a matter of honour and of integrity.
However, I am ready to accept the apology and the promise that it never happen again because the person who made the apology is someone I respect for his views and opinions on Twitter. He is the Finance Editor of The Nigerian Telegraph; I believe he also appreciates the reputational risk of being associated, albeit remotely with an organisation tainted with the proven allegation of plagiarism.
The Twitter Conversation
I believe I used the word ‘Plagiarism’ fairly and justly, and I am ready to move on. The Twitter trail of that event appears below.
My first observation

Then I asked

After which I wrote this blog and asked for an apology

Then I broadcast the tweet





When I originally wrote the blog, I thought is was written for The Nigerian Telegraph by a Chidi Okoye, but later found that it was signed by the Editor and online at this URL http://telegraphng.com/2013/11/culture-impunity/

Then it became a cause

Many hours later, after posting a comment on that article, which they moderated but never published, I returned to make my case.


Then I got this response - What is the issue?

It got an apology, but I needed to know who it was coming from.

He is the Finance Editor for the Nigerian Telegraph, I do consider him a friend on Twitter.


I then asked to use the exchanges we had in a blog, at least to say I have received an apology.



We concluded the conversation thus:

Do The Needful; That means after the apology, restitute by taking that article down.
This is a promise.


I use the word 'Plagiarism' fairly and justly.




Publisher Akin Akintayo at 22:30:00 0 comments
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Plagiarism: The Unforgivable Face of Nigerian Journalism

Update - Later
I eventually received an apology in the evening – [The Apology Blog]
Update
At first, I gave the Nigerian Telegraph the benefit of the doubt thinking my blog was plagiarised by someone writing for them, but now I have found the story Culture of Impunity published by the Editor without attribution. This is unacceptable. The rest of the article is as originally written apart from a new graphic at the end of this blog.

Reading me elsewhere
I would not know if it was a pang of conscience of the writer or the eagle-eyed editorial team of the Nigerian Telegraph that decided to pull a story titled Culture of Impunity written by one Chidi Okoye, but I have evidence than my material has been plagiarised.
Yesterday, I wrote a blog titled, #StellaGate: Do The Needful song, this morning going through my news feeds of Nigerian newspapers, I happened upon the ‘Culture of Impunity’ article, and I could see my words jump back at me and I know I never syndicated my piece nor gave anyone permission to use it.
This is plagiarism
I followed the link and found it was dead, at least to check if any attributions, acknowledgements or references were made to the source material on my blog, but I could find no such link. I can safely assume this was blatant plagiarism.
Google Search defines Plagiarism as “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.”
To prove my point, I searched for a section of text on Google and it did present the fact that the text had appeared on Nigerian Telegraph and this at least five hours before my search according to my newsreader.
The evidence
This is what I searched for, “After numberless claims and counterclaims from many government agencies with none of the at least five stories lining up” and much I have had issues with Nigerian journalism, this is no doubt a new low and a low blow, a real shame indeed.
I will let the graphics attached do the talking.

This is from my Feedly newsreader where I discovered at the end of the first paragraph that the text looked familiar. It was written by Chidi Okoye for the Nigerian Telegraph.

This proves that the text fragment that I searched for with its unique phraseology and punctuation did appear on the Nigerian Telegraph website. Mine at least 17 hours before this, if we compare timings on my newsreader and this result from Google.
Do the needful
The graphic below shows the sections edited or lifted directly from my blog. I am first embarrassed for The Nigerian Telegraph, a new news media outfit that I have followed from their inception, and I expect an apology from them for this unfortunate incident.

The page on the Nigerian Telegraph with URL and authored by the Editor.




Publisher Akin Akintayo at 08:56:00 0 comments
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Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Thought Picnic: Justifying MPs Expenses

A broadsheet village rag

It would be disingenuous of me to pretend that The Daily Telegraph looks anything like the quality paper I am familiar with.

Over the last week we have been regaled with a catalogue of the expenses of the UK Members of Parliament (MP) which were apparently purchased under from underhand scheme and have been revealed under the atrocious auspices of public interest.

I have found more editorial finesse in the Court Circular pages, the Obituaries and Sport pages, elsewhere, besides the business pages and a few reviews; I might well be viewing the titillating smut of Page 3 girls and gossip columns.

There might indeed be some public interest in what for 6 days is beginning to look like village gossip and tittle-tattle on expensed claims which tap on the sensational rather than core objectives.

Home away from home

When on holiday or when I stay at a hotel, I expect it to be of a particular standard which for me is a minimum comfort of my home or better – I am not one to stay in a 1-star cockroach infested dump, with no recourse for any redress.

Also, I have never really liked expense claims, I probably have thousands of pounds and Euros of receipts that I have never put through just because I thought they were an encumbrance and hard work.

If I did have a personal assistant, I probably would have given that task away and let things take their course.

The alternative to these revealed claims for homes, furnishing and upkeep would be a more expensive burden on the taxpayer and it is hypocritical for the papers not to view that perspective.

The alternative costs

The MPs are probably the equivalent of middle management, I would think that means a 4-star type hotel would be typical which in London could be upwards of GBP 250 per night – spending 100 days in London for parliamentary business would easily add up to the payments they get for a second home.

This does not include meals which would be fully expensed if they were in hotels rather than in their homes at about GBP 50 per head, if these MPs have families they cannot be completely excluded from the wellbeing factor of the MP.

Porn-ed expense

I was amused rather than annoyed when the husband of the Home Secretary put in claims for premium television viewing of pornography. Here we have a man whose wife is out serving the country in London and he at the constituency home tending the roost. In the need for some conjugal fellowship he makes for the less controversial between calling and escort or watching pornography.

How much sacrifice should a consort have to make in service of fatherland before their needs can be justified? I was amused, definitely not annoyed.

More than just a person

If the standard for expense claims is what an MP needs to do his job, I would add comfortably, because a person serving their constituency in privation and in a less than comfortable environment is not going to an effective MP.

The hotel solution would not have worked because about 500 hotel room rooms would have to be block booked in London for about a hundred days with changing seasons and rate with the possible unprofitability to hoteliers.

Having a second home in London is necessary and when you spend a considerable time away from your home constituency you want your London home to have a modicum of comfort, an MP is not a student living in digs.

By the time the home is furnished to a particular standard based on the John Lewis list, the costs add up, we should not forget, it is a home, not a hotel. If the MP has family, you have to consider the possibility of family visiting and suddenly an MP having a second home in London is not just some island of a person but a subject of humanity with needs as an MP that cannot be narrowly focused on the individual.

Time for things or deeds

Constituency work can be time-consuming and quite involved and there is the garden to tend, the swimming pool to clean and all sorts of household chores that suddenly require help because the MP cannot attend to them – they all then become expense claims.

To look at the claims in isolation of just the claim itself is unfair, there is a whole set of circumstances that result in what has been revealed in the receipts and this is leading to policy on the hoof to allay public anger, there might be anger, I view it more as jealousy because very few of the so-called indignant public would have acted differently if they were MPs.

No laws broken

But that is still beside the point, the real issue is no laws were broken, there was a reviewing board to challenge the expenses if they were irregular, if the board had no teeth, then that is not the fault of the MPs but the regulatory framework necessary to monitor expenses.

That needs to be changed, a retrospective analysis of expenses going back 4 years is as arbitrary as it seems, why not 2 years or why not since parliament was started – it is absurd and I think MPs should stand and defend the claims that have so far been passed, it is what is done from hence that should matter but with a bit more thinking rather than being driven by drivel to create rules that would not stand the test of time.

There is the nuanced view of the spirit of the law as opposed to the letter but that is more from the perspective of those who sit in judgement and envy rather than the participants.

Finally, the bigger question is? Do we pay our MPs enough? We probably don’t, this then raises the question of choices made by the person to be an MP, the availability of talent that would not take such a career path because of poor remuneration and what really helps an MP do their job whether that involves the complete welfare or the singular needs of the person alone.

Meanwhile, can I claim my holiday on expenses?

Publisher Akin Akintayo at 17:15:00 0 comments
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Tuesday, 29 April 2008

I need a early-bird paperboy

Need a quick paperboy

One has been reduced to reading the Daily Wail at breakfast; it is not the most comfortable feeling at all.

An Englishman must have his daily at breakfast but somehow the higher brow dailies seem to have relapsed into a sedentary holiday atmosphere with the Daily Telegraph getting to my island at well after 1:30PM.

Shurely shome mishtake – we cannot retime breakfast for lunch; that would just not do.

The Germans have it

As I visited the newsagents this morning, one could be forgiven for thinking I had just walked into a shop on Kurfurstendamm – every paper and magazine had an umlaut.

This island might be Spanish but there are more German signs here, the thought crossed my mind that we might have a Kosovo situation brewing with the Germans clamouring for unity with the mother country.

The dearth of cultured queens

I finally had a night out yesterday which started just after 1:00AM and as I got into town, someone took interest in my using a cane by being a silly busybody.

So, I said, “Are you trying to make polite conversation or are you being a typical uncultured British oaf”. He whooped with despicable effete and ran off with his gaggle (of geese) before my cane brought order to his disorderliness.

Whatever happened to the classy and debonair queens of old who carried themselves with such grace and well-mannered comportment – from Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward – I am reading his letters, Sir John Gielgud and now Sir Ian McKellen.

What we have now are loud and brash chavs with no airs, courtesy or manners – the dregs that make you tilt your head backwards with backhand to the brow in an almost fainting spell of despair.

O! Back to the place where everybody knows my name as they punctuate each sentence with Sir. I am being served - Thank you very much.

Publisher Akin Akintayo at 06:17:00 0 comments
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