Why Do I Even Have to Write This One?

     Yet another column in my series on the newly revised Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

     A column I don't think I should have to write.

     A statement I don't think I, or anyone else, should ever have to make: Never plagiarize.

     It still amazes me every time I hear of an instance of plagiarism. Maybe I'm naive, but I keep believing each case I hear of will be the last.

     Not so much how can people continue to plagiarize when it's so easy to catch them. People still rob liquor stores when they have to know there are security cameras.

     But how can people continue to plagiarize. Period. How can you do it? How can you steal like that?

    Do these people routinely slip Chap-stiks in their pockets at the Wawa? Do they cheat on their taxes? Do they cheat on their spouses?

     Is it generational? Are young people today more careless? Do they have a less developed sense of morality? Do they not understand the importance of facts? Of honesty? And, how can that be? Not just because they went into journalism, because they went to kindergarten.

     Maybe we were more idealistic back in the Last Ice Age. We believed in peace, love and rock and roll. We were the children brought up on President Kennedy's exhortation: "ask not what your country can do for you, as what you can do for your country."  We saw men walking on the moon and we knew we could do anything. We came of age as a few good journalists brought down a criminal presidency.

     Have young people grown so cynical they not only don't search for truth, they don't care?

     Even more confusing, if possible, is the motive to plagiarize.

     Why would someone steal another's words? Where does a person's pride go? I guess it's simply they don't have any pride to begin with -- but how does that happen?

     What does a person think he or she can gain from plagiarizing? It's not like stealing a car where at least you can drive around a little until you're caught?

     Janet Cooke got a Pulitzer for her made-up stories, but she had it stripped from her. She had to have known she wouldn't get away with her egregious infractions forever.

     Don't even get me started on Jayson Blair. Crazy? Yes, dangerously so, in my opinion.

     So, perhaps it is necessary for the ethics code to say "never plagiarize."