Neil Harman - Plagiarist

PaulM · Tennis legend

Neil Harman - Plagiarist

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Thank you for that, PaulM.

Words fail me.

A supposedly respected journalist ?

And the All England Club kept selling it ? And allowed him to keep his credentials? And gave him more work? Excuse me ?

All credibility out the window, for both man and Club.

And I hope that The Times takes note . . .

PS I'm assuming that it's absolutely true - which might be wrong, I guess . . .

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Wednesday 23rd of July 2014 09:20:58 PM

PaulM · Tennis legend

It's completely true. He's fessed up.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

PaulM wrote:
It's completely true. He's fessed up.

Oh really ?

With, I guess, some eloquent and utterly unconvincing waffle about 'mistakes happen' and 'I didn't realise' and other nonsenses . . .

PaulM · Tennis legend

He's finding it all very confusing apparently

steven · Tennis legend

I've been trying to get my head around this and concluded that there must be a bit more to it than meets the eye.

I was aware that the Wimbledon annual got written to an incredibly tight timescale and never quite understood how just one person managed to do it (and indeed, assumed they got help) and although I have never bought it, I wouldn't have been a bit surprised to see lots of attributed quotes from press coverage of the event in it.

Neil is obviously in the wrong and has clearly accepted as much but while he often seems a bit lazy about facts, he has never seemed lazy about writing, i.e. trying to create a scene in words, and the bits Ben quotes are mainly that type of thing.

Also, if he did deliberately plagiarise large chunks from other sources and tried to pass it off as his own work, he must surely have known that he was going to get found out in the end (it's not as if at least some of the people reading the annual who weren't Times readers wouldn't have remembered some of the purple patches of prose from the newspapers and known that he hadn't written them originally) and surely the odd journo reads it too and would have noticed, especially if it was their own stuff that was being copied! Thus, why on earth would he risk his reputation by doing it? And why, if he has been doing it for years, has it taken so long to come out?

So what I am wondering is, do lots of passages in these annuals have attributions and was he just lazy about making sure all of the relevant passages were attributed in the rush to get it out (a very bad professional lapse but hardly worthy of some of the opprobrium getting heaped on him) and/or get help from other people but feel that it is still his responsibility (which it probably would be) or did he deliberately plagiarise and somehow not expect to get found out?

I mean, I've had my own beefs with Neil about certain things but I'd be very surprised if it was the latter - it makes no sense.

-- Edited by steven on Wednesday 23rd of July 2014 09:40:48 PM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I see your point, Steven, and it's good to view things 'fairly'.

But, looking through all the reports I can find, I'm not sure you're right.

As I understand copyright law, you cannot simply 'copy' whole chunks and then correctly attribute it. That only applies to 'lifting' which is only for small quotes. Otherwise, we all could re-publish the latest best seller, and simply make sure the correct author and publisher were mentioned as the 'original' source.

For chunks the size of those examples of plagiarism given from Harman's text, you would need to ask permission (from the author and/or the publication, depending who owns the rights).

Now, it's true that sometime authors don't mind, even if you haven't asked, and the attribution is correct - any publicity is good. But I'd be surprised if the New York Times and The Guardian would fall into this camp.

So I think it's unlikely that he simply 'forgot' to put in some of the attributions.

One possibility is that he was working with a team of help writers (as you say, under time pressure), who (a) sourced useful text, (b) copied and pasted it and then (c) somebody (either Harman or one of the team writers) was supposed to 'mess it up' a bit so that it didn't look quite the same. And that some text fell through the cracks and got put in, un-doctored, so to speak.

As I say, only a possibility . . . and the net result is obviously the same - quite wrong.

NB All credit to the New York Times, and Ben R, for good investigative journalism, ethics and, indeed, far better tennis coverage in general. I hope The Times takes note.

philwrig · Hall of fame

I think it was mainly the time constraints which pushed him in this direction, although why he didn't make any references to the various journalists only he knows.

PaulM · Tennis legend

The fact he made very small tweaks to the text is odd though. Some to remove americanisms of course. But even copying across a typo. ..

It's just all a bit sad and appears that this year wasn't a one off now historic versions are being checked.

indiana · Tennis legend

Oo err, naughty OldEchoMan !

RJA · Hall of fame

I always found Neil to be a quite pathetic excuse for journalist who was far more interested in toadying up to players, or at least certain players, and those in power rather than reporting accurately and honestly. His writing frequently describes matches which I get the impression he didn't actually witness. Therefore I am glad to see his credibility obliterated.

Spectator · All-time great

As with you, Steven and CD, the only way I can see that makes sense is if Harman tends to start with various descriptive passages which he cuts and pastes into a text - either to attribute in the final copy or to inspire his own writing - and in a few cases (bearing in mind we're talking about a relatively small number of instances, some of which are just a sentence, over the course of 160 pages) forgot that passage A had actually been a quote and simply used it as text.

In that case, too, he might have gone back and made a few light edits to "his text" - hence the changes. I can't honestly believe that any journalist would be so daft as to knowingly plagiarise some of his or her most prominent colleagues (especially one who is both an editor and a lawyer!), so am inclined to think that that's what happened.

Vis a vis the club, (1) they didn't give him more work - when they found out, they asked him not to write the 2014 annual and (2) I strongly suspect that they may initially have known only of the GB plagiarisms, and may have accepted that Harman would inform and apologise to British writers at the Davis Cup and - if the writers were given the information and accepted the apology - that said apology, together with his being dropped from the 2014 version, would be punishment enough ... and that if any of the GB writers felt strongly enough to suggest that they not sell the annual any more, only then would they take further action. One suspects that his UK colleagues went along with this logic, as it doesn't appear as if it was they who kicked up a fuss. I do think that the Club should have made some acknowledgement along the lines of an errata slip, but ...

Is this really, really sloppy? Yes. But while I am all for truth coming out, and would hope that an errata slip will be inserted in any remaining copies of the earlier annuals, I would be inclined to think that Mr Harman's apologising publicly and the Club's acknowledging the issue publicly (and acknowledging it in a way that is clear to anyone who henceforth buys the book), is enough in terms of the book. I'd also like to see the AELTC increase the timescale that they give people to write the annual: who on earth could do an error-free job on a book of that size in 7 to 10 days?

-- Edited by Spectator on Thursday 24th of July 2014 05:57:51 AM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I take your point, Spectator, but according to the thing I am reading, the club did give him more work, that is, they asked him not to be the main writer of the 2014 annual but they asked him to contribute some article(s) to the Wimbledon programme. They also kept his credentials, still asked him to the official functions etc. etc.

They also kept the book in stock, and kept selling it, without any apology note inserted, for months after they knew of the problem, until - in fact - they were confronted about it.

And they took no steps (over these months) to notify the writers or apologise. As they had commissioned it and published the work, and their name was at stake, they should have done this - I don't think that Harman simply possibly apologising to the writers at the Davis Cup event is appropriate at all.

Plagiarism is stealing. You couldn't just steal the writers' wallets and then say 'Ok, no problem, just apologise next time you see them'.

I think the AELTC come out of this very badly. As does Harman, of course.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

NB On a slightly different note, I find it strange that the publishers let it slip through.

I guess they take one's 'word as a gentleman' (!) and don't question it.

However, students now have to submit all their assignments/dissertations/ PhD theses via an anti-plagiarism programme. 'Turnitin' is the common UK one.

They work extremely well, only cost about £7 to fun a full check (and two more subsequent checks, if you want to change some things), it picks up pretty much everything, using a mind-blowing huge data source, highlights it.

Shame they didn't use it - I suggest next time they do . . .

PaulM · Tennis legend

This is one of the worst things you can do as a journalist. It's also poor that the AELTC, having known about it and removed Harman from the 2014 edition, only removed the 2013 edition from the shelves after being confronted by Jon Wertheim.

I find it staggering for Neil to come out with comments that he is "shocked" and had "no idea" about it given it's quite clear there are numerous large examples of copying and pasting from other journalist's articles.