 |
| Please marry me |
This year's silly season is becoming sillier by the day. Not because in the absence of political raw material journalists are resorting to hackneyed light subjects, but, on the contrary, because the remains of the political season are themselves sillier. Leading the way by a mile is Ms Nikita Alamango.
Last time we encountered the young lady was yesterday when she had the The Times’editor’s boot up her bottom. Blogger Jacques Rene Zammit caught her out plagiarizing an article from the UK’s Financial Times for her blog and she was immediately fired from The Times. Click on the original story - Nikita scissorhands.
What’s the aftermath? Did Nikita Alamango address a dignified press conference to announce her resignation from the PL’s national executive and the post of international secretary of the Forum Zaghzagh Laburisti? Did she end the conference holding back tears and giving a heartfelt apology to her leader for letting him down?
Not quite. On her facebook page our Nikita is defending herself and what she did. You see this young moderate and progressive does not even think she did plagiarized. “If you read carefully I paraphrased and that is not copy and paste.” Take your pick, laugh of bang your head against the wall.
But wait, she wades even deeper in it. You see, she says, this has nothing to do with her plagiarizing. It is all a conspiracy against her fomented by the media which wants to do her in. Again, take your pick. But if you choose banging option go a bit gently. There’s more coming up.
Did The Times fire her for plagiarizing? Of course not, she tells us. Her plagiarized article was up for three days on The Times site before they fired her. So in Nikita’s Alice in Wonderland world this means that she couldn’t have been fired for her article-stealing. The dishonest bird brain thinks that we can’t figure out what obviously happened. Namely, that Jacques Rene Zammit caught her out three days after she blogged and The Times fired her immediately after they got to know.
Cyrus Engerer and Nikita Alamango really do deserve each other. One circulates pornographic pictures of his ex-boyriend and then runs to his godfather to help him fix his father’s drug bust. The other steals someone else's work and thinks that we're too stupid to notice. Had it been sexually doable, I would even suggest that they get married.
12 comments:
Lou, thanks for posting the link http://www.akkuza.com/2011/08/12/nikita-scissorhands
As far as I can see, Nikita's article is not particularly well structured. She does copy and paste too much information from external sources. So it seems that The Times of Malta could be justified in deciding to terminate Nikita's blog (depending on The Times' policy). But I'd believe that this would be on grounds other than plagiarism. Plagiarism is basically when the author gives an impression that the opinion is his (or hers). In this case Nikita has clearly stated that the information in those 5 bullet points were from OTHER ANALYSTS. She said, and I quote:
"...It’s interesting to note that while some analysts, as we have seen above,..."
Indeed, I wouldn't expect Nikita (whose expertise are in politics), to directly develop an opinion on economic and financial matters. If she did, then I think she'd be doing a much bigger mistake. So even had she not written what I've quoted, I'd still be sure that she wasn't trying to give an impression that financial analyses were her own.
So I'd like to hear YOUR views on whether there is plagiarism or not. If you argue that there is plagiarism, I think it would be useful if you tell us WHY THERE IS PLAGIARISM. To answer that question you would have to also state what constitutes plagiarism, and who decides what policy to use to determine the existence of plagiarism. If it is The Times that decides what is or what is not plagiarism in this case, then The Times' policy does not necessarily have to be congruent with the law or other entities.
Therefore, you might also need to explain to us, why The Times' judgement should determine Nikita's political career, be it with PL or PN.
The real reason Nikita Alamango's blog should have been removed from the Times is the reason it should not have been there in the first place. It adds nothing to a debate already flooded with opinion devoid of substance, and written in such atrocious English too.
That you do not expect Nikita to directly develop an opinion on economic and financial matters, because 'her expertise are in politics' is odd to say the least. While there are serious reasons to doubt that Miss Alamango is an expert in politics, why do you imagine that such expertise is distinct from economic and financial matters? And if one knows nothing of the latter, isn't it more than a little presumptuous to publish one's thoughts, when there are none?
Your attempt to defend Miss Alamango as a friend is admirable, but you do her and her party a disservice by defending the indefensible.
@ Anonymous:
A disservice to this "debate" is your assumption that one's opinion has to be defending a political party or a person. You seem to be one of those idiots still seeing the world in red or blue.
Another disservice is the fact that you unintelligently conclude that intentional exam cheating is the same as this kind of "plagiarism". Whether you want it or not, the fact that the two are different IS defensible.
What is also defensible is the fact that the author didn't aim to represent others' opinions as her own...
Are you saying that Ms Alamango cheated in exams?I wasn't aware of that.
Using someone else's ideas as one's own is plagiarism. Why persist in arguing otherwise? If one is incapable of producing any sort of financial analyses, it is foolish to give an opinion on the matter.
Your argument that Ms Alamango is incapable of financial analyses does not bolster her defence. Whether she plagiarised the ideas of others or ventured an opinion on matters which she does not understand, her blog post should never have been published. Given that she blogged as a young female representative of the Labour Party, publishing nonsense could only bring her and her party into disrepute. Plagiarism only makes the matter worse.
Now you're saying that Nikita cheated in her exams ?? Seriously ?? :-)
In his articles Lou implied that exam cheating and unintentional "plagiarism" are essentially the same thing.
Anonymous, there is some substance in what you're saying. But you happen to be commenting on blog texts that have taken an event, and tangled it with completely unrelated matters.
And you're wrong in insisting that the ideas were used as the author's own. Objectively speaking, she has clearly stated that the ideas were those of others ;-)
Your persistent repetition is an insult to everyone's intelligence.
Christian, you're missing the essential point that Nikita Alamango does a disservice to the office and party she represents. Her mishandling of the whole affair, alternately protesting her innocence and seeking to defend her wrongdoing by pointing to the wrongdoing of others, only compounds her initial error - she accepted to voice opinions when she is in no position to offer any substance. (You do not disagree with that, as you yourself have said that she is not capable of forming opinions on economic or financial matters.) I say that because I have followed her blog and have often wondered what - beyond her selling points of being young, female and a PL official - justified her being offered that platform in the first place.
Is the Labour Party so devoid of talent that no other alternative is possible?
Okay. You've just clarified that your opinion is based on a series of happenings; not just this instance of unintentional "plagiarism".
I haven't been following her blog, so I can't really comment.
In general I do think that young people with an interest in politics should be given a fair opportunity. They should also work hard enough to avoid blowing it..
Plagiarism cannot be unintentional. It either occurs or it does not and, in this case, it did.
Ms Alamango did not get a fair opportunity. What she got was an *unfair* opportunity to tell us what she thinks when all along she had nothing worth saying and lacked the ability to write properly. Her only qualifications were her official position in the Labour Party, her age and her gender. The flipside, of course, is that someone with something worth saying and the ability to write was shunted aside to make room for someone less qualified. It's either that, or Nikita Alamango really is the best that the Labour Party can offer.
Yes yes, that's why I've written "plagiarism" and not plagiarism. The core of all this debate is on whether there was plagiarism or not. If plagiarism can only be intentional, then Nikita's is NOT plagiarism... Because she had written... (refer to the other posts).
'Plagiarism can only be intentional' means that it can't happen by accident. No one - not even Nikita Alamango - can copy someone else's ideas unintentionally, though it is possible to come up with similar ideas at the same time.
As an exercise in logic, your argument fails. As an exercise in the determination of facts, it is pointless. Nikita Alamango did not deny ripping off Gillian Tett's ideas. She variously excused what she did as 'paraphrasing', and as 'anyway I'm not the only one who did this'.
Her weak attempts to defend herself are evidence that she wasn't qualified to represent her demographic, anyway - unless, of course, you believe that the Labour Party is totally inept.
Anonymous, there's a difference between my approach to these comments and yours. You have a political agenda. I don't.
You have a right to your opinion, just like we all do. But you don't have a right to selling your opinion to all of us as religion. So I think it is reasonable to ask you to at least realise that opinions are opinions and not facts.
Post a Comment