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CBS under cloud after pulling Couric podcast

CBSnews.com has pulled the April 4 edition of a daily video podcast by its very high profile news anchor Katie Couric, under circumstances that have to raise eyebrows.

CBS says there was an “omission” in failing to acknowledge that “much of the material” in Katie’s Notebook came from a column by Jeffrey Zaslow in the Wall St Journal.

Is CBS saying Couric plagiarized from the WSJ? If that’s what happened, then this is a very serious breach of ethics. Unfortunately, the editor’s note posted on the Couric podcast page gives very little information.

The CBSnews.com blog Public Eye has at least some of the story.

3 Comments

  1. I’d be guessing any “re-purposing” went on at producer level…

  2. Thanks Adrian. I don’t doubt what you say, but thanks to the amibiguous Editor’s Note that now replaces the Apr 4 podcast it looks like CBS is letting Couric take the rap for this. After all, she presents these podcasts as if they are her own opinion (she signs off each one with “That’s a page from my notebook”) so viewers are likely to assume the words are hers too. I think the best resolution would be for CBS News to explain what happened and what they’ve done about it.

  3. […] Three days ago, I commented that CBS appeared to be trying to sweep the Katie Couric broadcast/podcast incident under the carpet. […]

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