October 2010

Plagiarism is Rife

Plagiarism is rife in the media, both on the unofficial blogosphere, and in the mainstream.

A few months back I was very tempted to draw attention to the similarities between a Guardian article about the Colombian goddess singer Shakira and the Wikipedia page about her, but I let it pass, as one can never be sure of who has copied whom.

However, today the editor of Building Design, Amanda Baillieu, tweeted

Observer's splash on B&B, wealthy London councils etc, was an Inside Housing story from last wk . Great mag, shame Ob didn't credit.

Here are links to both stories. http://tinyurl.com/29nvjar http://is.gd/gfzrp

Fair enough, and well spotted, Amanda. But your publication is not that squeaky-clean itself in this regard.

Take, for example, this BD story from October 8:

RIBA Gold Medal eases Chipperfield's Stirling pain

Nice pic of the medal, let's take a closer look:

Notice the complete lack of attribution, tut, Amanda.

So whose pic is it?

First place to look is on the RIBA's website.

Here's their announcement of the Gold Medal award to Sir David Chipperfield:

Ooh, nice pic, that looks familiar!

So who took it?

Taking a tour of their Royal Gold Medal online exhibition leads us to:

Yay, mystery solved! It wasn't that hard, was it?

The photographer was... *drum roll* Liz Walder, director of the RIBA's Welsh offshoot, the Royal Society of Architects in Wales.

Even if BD couldn't be bothered to find the photographer's identity and ask permission and properly attribute it, they could have, at the very least, credited the RIBA as the picture source.

Nice pic, Liz.