Neil Harman - Plagiarist

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

RE: Neil Harman - Plagiarist

LordBrownof · Futures level

I'm afraid there are no excuses that could justify Neil staying on at The Times or in any capacity as a journalist. There's huge precedent for this and Johann Hari is a good example (and that was for using the odd quote, if I remember rightly).

Quite frankly, he's a mature adult. In any business context, if you don't have time to complete a task to an adequate standard then you say something (this is particularly true of the journalists I've worked with). Neil Harman is big enough and ugly enough to go to the club and say he can't turn around work within that short timeframe and he knows, as we do, that the club has enough money to hire additional staff.

The process of accrediting writing to other writers is not something that journalists 'do at the end' or 'often forget about', it's fundamental to the practice and there's no excuse for this to happen. And then to do it to extremely well known and widely read writers is unbelievable.

Moreover, this hasn't just happened in The Annual. As Ben points out, he found passages in Harman's other writing too. Well done to Ben (who is generally brilliant and insightful in my view) for writing this piece (and without sensationalising it too).

PaulM · Tennis legend

It's also very odd that there are points at which large pieces of text have been attributed to the original author.

indiana · Tennis legend

I couldn't care less if there are 160 pages or whatever.

To my mind there are clearly far too many issues, and particularly too many barely adjusted large sections to be remotely pardonable. What has been issued ( evidently repeatedly ) in his name is far more than "sloppy".

Also, the timescale being probably too short is no excuse. If you can't negotiate more time, you either say it is too short and don't take it on or you find professional ways to do a professional job. He wasn't forced to do this work each year. Seems like a bit of an ego trip. Well the ego has come down with a thud !

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

First off I was thinking how outrageous this was of Mr Harman. Then I got to thinking how I would approach producing the annual in such a short space of time. Given that many of the matches to be written about would have run concurrently and I would not have been able to see them all, I would have assembled as many eye-witness accounts as possible of those I didn't see. Given the time constraints, some of these I would have attempted to amalgamate and re-write in my own words and others I would have probably quoted bits of. Obviously I would have tried to have a system in place to flag up the quotes so they were not passed off as mine. Given that quite a lot of borrowed words are accredited, the more I think about it the more I think it is unlikely to be deliberate just incredibly sloppy, lazy and careless

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

But 'incredibly sloppy, lazy and careless' is as bad, if not worse, than deliberate.

Indeed, if you're careless about the breaking the law, as in couldn't care less about breaking the law, then, net net, the result is just the same. Stealing is stealing. And that's all that plagiarism is.

According to The Washington Post and The Guardian, there are 52 identifiable plagiarisms. Over three separate years.

If I walked out of the supermarket, absent-mindedly, with a can of beans without having paid, that's a mistake. The shop manager/magistrate will probably be understanding.

If I walk out with my 52nd can of unpaid for beans, that's systematic theft. No excuses of 'I just forgot'.

The Guardian, I think it is, also reports that he will likely lose his accreditation at the US Open. And quite right too. This wasn't a one-off because he was rushed. It's been year-in year-out. And the AELTC should look to themselves and see what sort of behaviour they try to hush up and ignore before judging others.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

I'm not saying that what he has done is OK, CD, plagiarism IS plagiarism. Intent may not be relevant in the eyes of the law (I'm no lawyer) but to me it makes a difference as to how I personally view it. To me, it seems like he's obviously cobbled this thing together in the same way in an unfeasibly short space of time year in year out and no-one's picked him up on anything and he's never bothered to tighten his procedures. Now, clearly I don't know if it is actually the case and as this situation progresses facts may well invalidate my viewpoint. It's not that I am a particular fan of Mr Harman, I just find it hard to believe that a journalist in his position would deliberately plagiarise such high profile writers in his own field in such an openly available publication.

However, I too am incredulous that AELTC did not arrange for a slip to go into existing copies of the book nor contact writers they knew to have been plagiarised, deliberately or otherwise.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Deletes his twitter following suspension from the Times.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

The Optimist wrote:
I'm not saying that what he has done is OK, CD, plagiarism IS plagiarism. Intent may not be relevant in the eyes of the law (I'm no lawyer) but to me it makes a difference as to how I personally view it. To me, it seems like he's obviously cobbled this thing together in the same way in an unfeasibly short space of time year in year out and no-one's picked him up on anything and he's never bothered to tighten his procedures. Now, clearly I don't know if it is actually the case and as this situation progresses facts may well invalidate my viewpoint. It's not that I am a particular fan of Mr Harman, I just find it hard to believe that a journalist in his position would deliberately plagiarise such high profile writers in his own field in such an openly available publication.
However, I too am incredulous that AELTC did not arrange for a slip to go into existing copies of the book nor contact writers they knew to have been plagiarised, deliberately or otherwise.

I agree that one's gut feel is not really a 'legal' thing and is perfectly valid.

But I don't really see 'intent' in the same way.

The work was obviously deliberately copied. Somebody hit the copy and paste buttons on big swathes of test, and it wasn't the fairies in the night.

Obviously, however, the omission of all the citations could, in theory, be 'just' an oversight.

However, I don't buy this time-pressure, rushed argument.

Firstly, there are way too many instances. I don't believe one 'forgets' that many times.

Secondly, this did not just happen yesterday.

i.e. Let's say, Harman was indeed frantically busy last year and 'forgot' as an honest mistake.

What happened when the book was published ? He must have seen the finished version, opened it, seen all the text that he knew wasn't his, and seen that it wasn't attributed.

He's not in any rush now. He's all the time in the world. Did he say 'oh, Lord, I forgot to add the citations' and get on the phone to the journalists/publishers in question to apologise ? Did he tell the AELTC ? Did he try and rectify the situation ? Even when Private Eye 'exposed' it, he didn't.

I have no idea what was going through Harman's head but it seems to me he had ample time afterwards to correct any genuine mistakes and that, again, not talking specifically about him as I don't know, but there are many people who are rather cavalier with the law when they think they are quite important, that an apology will suffice and that a government/big company/big club will back them up and stand by them.

philwrig · Hall of fame

The other question is how many folk read this publication anyway, seems a bit odd that it hasn't been picked up many moons ago.

-- Edited by philwrig on Friday 25th of July 2014 04:40:29 PM

Spectator · All-time great

CD, I follow that plagiarism is plagiarism, and I'm not a hired apologist for Mr Harman ... but I think that I can understand how it could have happened in a way which is far more sloppy mistake than deliberate intent. All of the tennis journalists during the Wimbledon fortnight are on pretty much 24/7. Between churning out mountains of copy every day and reading other people's copy, I suspect that by the end it all becomes a bit of a miasma ... If you're then going through tons of material again to do the annual, I can imagine that it would be possible - if you'd been sloppy about your signalling attributions - to forget that a part of the text that looked familiar wasn't actually yours to begin with. Is this rather dreadful laxity from a professional journalist? Of course. But I continue to think it's more incompetence than malevolence. (As to why he didn't pick it up afterwards, I'd be surprised if he read it afterwards. Philwrig, the general sense seems to be that tennis journalists don't read it)

korriban · Challenger level

I agree with many things Neil writes and I disagree with many things he writes. I enjoy lots of his articles, and others make me cringe.

But there appears to be a growing breed of journalists (or was it always thus, I'm just too young! err, no) where their articles and stories seem to revolve around themselves, for reasons ranging from self-promotion, self-importance, attention seeking or even pure vanity. Camilla Long [what qualifies her to now be a more credible film critic than any of us, precisely], Caitlin Moran [I have never read a single article by her involving less than 50 uses of "I, my, my, me, mine etc"]. Jeremy Clarkson [is it still funny after all these years]. Neil Harman. Times/Sunday Times link anyone?

The crime of stealing another journalist's work would probably rank alongside taking home company paper after work to most of us, but the irony is that to a journalist, this is a massive crime and hugely sensitive, and therefore no self-respecting journalist would ever make such a mistake by accident or in haste. In this context, his excuses come across as risible to most of us outsiders, but I'd be curious how this comes across to those on the inside.

And so the ultimate irony is that Neil finally appears to have written a piece which has genuine newsworthiness AND has almost nothing about himself in it.........the news is all about OTHER people! wink No sorry, he appears not to have written one, after all! wink

LordBrownof · Futures level

If you haven't yet, you should check out the Ben Rothenberg and Courtney Nguyen podcast 'No Challenges Remaining' where they talk through the story of finding out, investigating it and finally reporting it, including why and what Neil said. It's fascinating and as a tennis podcast, the best out there in my view. This episode is particularly interesting if you've been following the story.

nochallengesremaining.podbean.com/

indiana · Tennis legend

Thanks, LordBrownof, fascinating indeed. For anyone interested in the Harman plagiarism affair well worth the ( quite lengthy ) listen.

wolf · Tennis legend

Did anyone see the exchange Rothenberg & Barry Flatman of The Times? Doesn't paint Flatman in a great picture.

I'm linking to a thread on MTF as it chronicles the events well - http://www.menstennisforums.com/showthread.php?p=27416282