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NYT claims MoDo is "eager" to give credit; Tucker disagrees

May 18, 2009 1:29 pm ET by Jamison Foser

New York Times spokesperson Diane McNulty:

There is no need to do anything further since there is no allegation, hint or anything else from Marshall that this was anything but an error. It was corrected. Journalists often use feeds from other staff journalists, free-lancers, stringers, a whole range of people. And from friends. Anyone with even the most passing acquaintance with Maureen's work knows that she is happy and eager to give people credit.

As Politico's Michael Calderone notes, the fact that Marshall hasn't lodged any further complaints doesn't mean anything about anything.  Whether or not Maureen Dowd did something wrong is not dependent upon whether Josh Marshall says she did.

But that bit about Dowd being "happy and eager to give people credit" caught my eye, because just moments earlier, I read Tucker Carlson's comments during a Washington Post online discussion:

[T]he whole thing is an interesting window into how her column is created. I knew someone once who was on her call rotation. Every week, she'd call and collect amusing lines from him, which she'd invariably use without attribution. Every writer does this to some extent -- I've made a lot of money over the years stealing from my conversations with Matt Labash -- but she seems to do it more than most.

So which is it?  Is Dowd "happy and eager to give people credit," or does she rely more than most writers on the attribution-free use of lines told to her by others?

Earlier: How would the NYT react if Joe Biden gave an excuse this lame?

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    • Author by archae (May 18, 2009 2:21 pm ET)
      1  
      Maureen Dowd plagiarized, then made up a lame excuse?

      The same Maureen Dowd who screamed her head off about Biden's inadvertent plagiarism?
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      • Author by carlileb5935 (May 18, 2009 3:11 pm ET)
        1  
        Marshall should make a huge issue about this. All bad publicity is good publicity for the other side. What in the world is he thinking?-- she made money on stealing his paragraph.
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    • Author by NiceguyEddie (May 18, 2009 2:40 pm ET)
      3  
      Seeing as how I think Tucker Carlson is quite possibly more deserving of a wedgie than any other man in history, I almost don't know how to take this! Gotta love it when they take on their own though!
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      • Author by carlileb5935 (May 18, 2009 3:14 pm ET)
        1  
        And since when do columnists use "stringers" or free-lancers?" Free lance what-- writers? Dowd is not a reporter, she's a columnist. Those are supposed to be her own words.

        Makes you wonder what else isn't hers. Besides, she violated the NYT copy book by not attributing her sources-- so where's the suspension?
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    • Author by latanza (May 18, 2009 3:13 pm ET)
         
      Aha! We can admit that there is more journal than journalism in her presentation. BUT! Being publically corrected does a lot for future media presentation. Dot your eyes and cross your heart:) You may mimic grand but are you smart! :(
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    • Author by steeve (May 19, 2009 7:37 pm ET)
         
      Tucker's dumb enough to think Dowd's liberal, so he'll be happy to bring her down.
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