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| Nikita Alamango |
Blogger Jacques Rene Zammit has spotted that she brazenly plagiarised a post on her Times blog from an article in the Financial Times. No half measures for Nikita: if she's going to steal, she steals from the best. Within hours, The Times did the correct thing and removed her from their list of bloggers.
The Partit Laburista, particularly its deputy leader Toni Abela, had made a great big fuss when David Agius, a PN parliamentary member cheated in his exams. For months on end, in his column, on his radio show on Bondiplus, Abela demanded that Agius' political head to be put on the block.
Now, as I sip a glass of cold Chardonnay in mid-August, I shall wait to see what he does about Nikita. This time he has the power to act and not just blather as is his wont. Will he get Nikita fired from her posts in the party? Will he debar her from being a candidate in the next election?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
10 comments:
The following comments were posted on my fb wall on this post:
Christian Bonniċi: Plagiarism is always bad. However, exam cheating is ten times as bad as the copying and pasting of PUBLISHED MATERIAL. Enjoy the Chardonnay...
Pierre Mazzacano D'Amato Hmmmm, in my book, plagiarism and cheating are like two sides of the same coin. Christian, I must disagree with you on this one...
Erika Galea as always Lou, well written!
Mario Vella x'nitnejjek Christian. Hadet li haqqha u j'alla kull min hu copycat f'kull qasam jaqla tumakki simili.
Christian Bonniċi Pierre, one is about intellectual property, the other is about classification of people... In intellectual property issues one must balance copyright rights with fair use rights, and this is an ambiguous process that often involves a posterioiri scrutiny of what happened. Specifically one must consider factors such as * How much of it was copied * whether it was done for financial gain * etc etc.. The balance is crucial for innovation. Unless copyright rights were limited, then innovation would suffer. Unless fair dealing caveats to the copyright rights were limited, again, innovation would suffer. That said, copying in an exam is (1) less public or naive than copying published material, and (2) almost certainly for direct personal gain... Now, I've not seen what Nikita has copied, and within which context, so I cannot really comment. Yet Lou's comparison in this particular case is a bit shaky. Although the article is generally good...
Christian Bonniċi The bottom line is this: If it is true that she plagiarised published material, it "must" be out of naivety or ignorance rather than out of greed... The same does NOT apply to exam cheating, where one would be cheating specifically to do better than other exam candidates...
Re: "...it 'must' be out of naivety or ignorance...", not sure about that Christian. She's a university student.
Her defence is that she "paraphrased", only thing is that she accidentally forgot to include her sources. More on my blog; http://melahart.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/local-social-media-wars/
@ Pierre: Sorry just saw your message. Here's my feedback:
Just below the 5 numbered paragraphs (which are the basis of Akkuza's original analysis)
Nikita has clearly stated the following:
"...It’s interesting to note that while some analysts, as we have seen above,..."
Therefore it seems clear to me that it was not Nikita's intention to represent those analysts' opinions as her own. This is a substantial defence on her side.
It also further strengthens my previous point that exam copying and what happened here are totally different. One is intentional and the other is not.
Now, Lou's comparison gives the impression that either both are intentional or both are not intentional. Therefore Lou's comparison is simply inaccurate.
So, in conclusion: intentionality is the key. And Nikita's intention does not appear to have been to represent other people's opinions as her own.
This said, I do believe that Nikita's articles could be better, given that she's a student at one of Britain's very best Universities, as you clearly state...
Regarding your point: It is out of naivety and ignorance because the article does not match her intention. She intended to quote, but she did not make it as clear as she should. Also, she assumed that it was The Times' responsibility to ensure that the article was "attack proof", where in fact the responsibility is the author's.
PS: If Nikita was on PN's side, I'd argue exactly the same thing...
@ Melahart: Haha! I wish I had time for the biscuits :)
It seems you're enjoying it :)
Christian, I totally agree with your postscript. What David Agius and Nikita Alamango did was wrong. This issue is beyond party politics.
Re: “intentionality is key”, I think that we have to agree to disagree here : - ) In my view, your premise can lead to a very slippery slope. I mean, where will you draw the line? Moreover, no one knows – and no one will ever know – what was going through Nikita’s mind. For all I know, David Agius could have had good intentions (you see what I mean?). Maybe he was trying to pass the exam by cheating to get a better job and help a family in need – but does that justify exam cheating? Of course not.
Then there’s also another issue: was Nikita getting paid by The Times of Malta? Was her blog being used to advance her career? If yes, then to use your own words, her plagiarism is “ten times as bad” as copying in an exam, if not worse. Before I explain why, let me reiterate that what David Agius did was wrong. But I believe that he apologised for his actions (note: not intentions) and was duly punished by the institution concerned. Nikita’s case is different though – it involves copyright material taken from the Financial Times. Now this makes David’s exam cheating look like a minor offence, doesn’t it?
To conclude, I would just like to say that it really saddens me to see Malta’s political future wasted like this. I mean, during the divorce debate, Nikita came across as a bright and articulate person. I even said to myself: gosh, that pretty young lady may one day become Malta’s first female PM. Alas, I fear that this silly and unnecessary mistake will haunt her forever : - //
pmd
Pierre, this is an interesting topic.
I agree that it's difficult to draw the line between what is intentional and what is not; intention is intangible and often found to be too complex to be modelled or theorised.
In this case David’s intention was to cheat. What you refer to (i.e. passing the exam, getting a better job, etc.) is more about his motivations than it is about whether David intended to cheat or not. But the fact that his motives are (arguably) “good” does not justify David’s intentional actions. This is because David’s job and family are not more (or less) important than those of his peer exam candidates.
In Nikita’s case, given that she has stated that the five numbered paragraphs are others’ opinions, it should be clear that she didn’t intend to represent their opinions as her own. So non-intentionality should free her from accusations of being an unethical journalist. Of course she can safely be accused of not properly referencing others’ works, but not that she intended to breach their rights.
Now, it is also true that it’s difficult to draw a line between what is intentional and what is not. The line is usually subject to policy making. However, Pierre, if we didn’t make such differentiations, then our thinking would be overly simplistic.
The same applies to copyright law. It is difficult to draw the line between what constitutes a copyright breach and what is fair use. In fact it is often too difficult, even for copyright lawyers, to decide in a priori whether something does or does not breach copyright. This is due to the ambiguity of Fair Use (in the US) or Fair Dealing (in the UK and Malta) exceptions to copyright rights. But again, this should not lure us into thinking that we can oversimplify copyright matters. (As a side note: ambiguity is an important characteristic of copyright law. It leads to a complex but interesting system where innovation is supposed to prevail, although, admittedly, the system does also lead to abuses…).
As a last note, factors that could contribute to determining one’s intention include the consideration of what one has done in the past, and of one’s future aspirations, etc.. This sheds light on one’s motives and intentions, etc. It also sheds lights on the motives and intentions of the “watch dogs”. Lou is probably experienced enough to confirm that not every accusation is as clean as it should be, and that as long as you’re strong enough, you’ll eventually survive, and actually become stronger. So if I were Nikita I’d take these attacks as training. She’s slowly being introduced to the world of politics (AND NOT ONLY OF JOURNALISM).
Finally, I agree to disagree. I’ll never consider Nikita’s unintentional plagiarism as bad as David Agius’ intentional cheating. Let alone 10 times as worse!
As I said, interesting topic... But now I have to attend to other stuff :)
"She’s slowly being introduced to the world of politics (AND NOT ONLY OF JOURNALISM)."
What, then, is she doing on the executive committee of a major political party?
Your spirited defence of Ms Alamango is doing more to damage her reputation than any of her writing has ever done.
Anonymous, Christian is merely pointing out some facts... He's simply stating that Lou's comparisons are shaky...
Thanks Anonymous 2, that was initially my point.
To Anonymous 1: you seem to be taking this quite seriously. I hope you're not defending the fact that Nikita's actions are comparable to David's.
It seems, though, that you're going a long way to defend an argument that is actually weak.
Please note that I'm not saying that you're defending the author and that you shouldn't (providing a list of reasons). I'm not in that business. I'm just saying that you seem to be defending a weak argument.
Of course, it's up to you. If you want to proceed, then we will proceed.
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