Perkins’ Departure Leaves 3 Blacks Nationally
Ken Parish Perkins, one of barely a handful of African American television critics at daily newspapers, has resigned from Texas’ Fort Worth Star-Telegram over plagiarism charges, the paper plans to tell readers Friday.
Executive Editor Jim Witt told staffers by e-mail this afternoon:
“The following note will go on the Metro front page Friday, and there will be a David House column on the op-ed page that I will e-mail to you once it is finished later this afternoon.
“TO OUR READERS
“Star-Telegram television critic Ken Parish Perkins has resigned from the paper after an examination of his work revealed several instances of apparent plagiarism.
“A caller to the paper last week pointed out that one paragraph in Perkins’ story Nov. 10th about the ABC series ‘Lost’ was repeated verbatim from Entertainment Weekly with no attribution. A further check of Perkins’ stories and columns from the present to July 2003 revealed several instances where Perkins either used a whole sentence or long phrases in sentences verbatim without giving credit or attribution, a violation of the Star-Telegram’s ethics policy.”
The note is to be accompanied by an op-ed page column by House, the paper’s reader advocate. Copies of the column were circulating last night via e-mail. Witt sent word to Journal-isms that he would have no further comment tonight.
However, Witt is quoted in House’s column as saying, “While we’re all sorry Ken won’t be working with us any more, our credibility with our readers is the most valuable thing we have, and we can’t afford to do anything that might jeopardize the confidence they have in us.”
House praises Perkins for his “nimble intellect and insightful writing.”
Perkins’ departure from the ranks of television critics leaves only three African Americans with that job title at a daily newspaper, according to a count taken last year when Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times became an editorial writer (he is now a media critic): Suzanne Ryan of the Boston Globe, Melanie McFarland of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Kevin Thompson of Florida’s Palm Beach Post.
“Beyond being a black TV critic, he is one of the best arts critics I’ve ever read, regardless of race or beat area,” Deggans told colleagues in the National Association of Black Journalists tonight. “This is truly a sad day.”
Perkins, 46, had been at the Star-Telegram since 1998; before that he held similar posts at the Dallas Morning News and Chicago Tribune. In the Dallas Observer in 2000, his columns were praised for going against conventional wisdom. “He is honest, has heart, and isn’t afraid to tackle broad social issues,” Eric Celeste wrote.
“For me, it’s like a death in the family,” Bob Ray Sanders, a vice president at the Star-Telegram as well as a columnist, told Journal-isms. “Based on everybody I’ve dealt with today, Ken is loved. He really is. He was a leader. He was a mentor to a lot of younger people in our building. There are a lot of tears. People are crying. Because of my position” as a vice president often consulted on personnel decisions, “I was involved earlier. I came home the other day and I cried myself. He’s an incredible human being and an incredible journalist.”
After a Knight Fellowship at Stanford University, Perkins wrote in 2003 that he hoped to begin a documentary about his childhood home, Chicago’s Robert Taylor housing projects, which were being demolished to make room for low- and middle-income residents.
He wrote in the Star-Telegram then: “Having constantly labored under the suspicion that the stereotypes about black people were true, I would inadvertently fulfill them, causing inward anxiety so disruptive that it impaired my intellectual performance, no matter the preparation. The trigger could be obvious, such as the white colleague who asked me at my first newspaper job whether I was ‘filling the minority slot or are you a real journalist?’ or being asked to identify ethnicity before taking a test.
“I could always rely on perceived weaknesses to rationalize my quitting or being quitted upon. But what always saved me was the old-school Southern mother who found a way to go to a job she despised and that would almost certainly leave her with the chronic arthritis she now confronts. As a result, I’ve never seen a job as too demeaning or a person as too complicated to figure out or a story, serious or silly, that can’t be reported on with hard, dedicated work.”
Here is the text of House’s reader advocate column, scheduled for publication Friday:
Credibility is the lifeblood of journalism. There’s nothing more important to the relationship between journalism and the public than the trust that’s established with honest, credible work.
Credibility is really the only thing that a journalist has and the only thing that any newspaper, including the Star-Telegram, sells.
That’s why the Star-Telegram’s mission statement is: ‘Earning the people’s trust daily.’
That’s why for years, especially after the Jayson Blair scandal rocked The New York Times in 2003 and scandals and controversies followed at other high-profile newspapers, our industry has fretted and agonized about how best to reverse the steady erosion of the public’s trust in journalists.
Cause for concern seems to surface often, usually involving instances of plagiarism and / or fabrication – two of the deadliest sins against credibility.
Just this week, for instance, editors at the San Francisco Chronicle said they were looking into possible plagiarism in some staff work there.
Sadly, the Star-Telegram, must add troubling news to the situation.
Popular TV critic Ken Parish Perkins, whose nimble intellect and insightful writing have entertained and intrigued readers for nine years, has resigned after instances of apparent plagiarism were found in some of his work.
A caller to the paper last week pointed out that a Nov. 10 story by Perkins included a paragraph without attribution that appeared verbatim in Entertainment Weekly magazine.
After editors talked to Perkins about the issue, he was suspended while they checked his previous work.
What they found were several stories and columns over about a two-year period in which he used either whole sentences or long phrases in sentences that were taken from other newspapers, magazines and Web sites verbatim without attribution of any kind.
Almost all of the questionable content involved a sentence or two of background material found far into the story. But the evidence represented a clear pattern to Star-Telegram editors that Perkins was violating our ethics policy on attribution of material that was not original.
When presented with the facts, Perkins chose to resign.
‘We’re all quite stunned and saddened by this,’ Executive Editor Jim Witt said. ‘Ken has been one of our best writers and hardest workers at the paper. He’s always been someone we can depend on – that’s why it’s so hard for us to understand why this happened.
“He’s been a good friend to everyone he worked with here, and we’ve always considered him to be someone with high ethical standards.
‘But ultimately we have to be able to trust our reporters. While we’re all sorry Ken won’t be working with us any more, our credibility with our readers is the most valuable thing we have, and we can’t afford to do anything that might jeopardize the confidence they have in us.
‘Because of Ken’s high-profile position at the paper, we thought it best to tell our readers what was happening.’
Plagiarism – presenting without attribution others’ work as one’s original work, whether in phrases or other blocks of text – is of such concern that the Star-Telegram Employee Guide addresses the matter specifically:
‘Passing off another’s words or ideas as one’s own is unacceptable at the Star-Telegram. Staff members should not copy the word of others unless credit is given. Using the words or the illustrations of others is plagiarism.
“Because journalists often cover the same events, similarity in subject matter, and even in story ideas, is inevitable. The reporting, the treatment, the language must be original – or they must be attributed. Violation of this standard may be cause for termination.’
The Star-Telegram brings other policies and tools to bear on guarding internally against plagiarism and fabrication, chiefly in response to the recent string of scandals and as steps to assure our readers and staff that we are committed to credible work and cannot abide unethical practices.
Since March 2004, when Witt instituted a fact-checking policy, staff stories have been randomly selected at least once a month for verification of information, quotes, paraphrased comment and original reporting.
The selection process involves my random numbering of local stories, usually in a week’s worth of papers. I take a box of like-numbered movie tickets to Witt, who stirs them up, shakes them around and blindly pulls out a ticket.
The number of the ticket corresponds to the number of the story that will be fact-checked.
The writer is contacted and asked for contact information for help in reaching the story’s sources. While a news researcher and I verify facts in the story, Witt’s administrative assistant, D’Juana Gibson, contacts sources and verifies whether they were accurately quoted or paraphrased.
Once fact-checking is completed, results are sent to the writer, the writer’s editor and Witt.
In May 2004, the effort was equipped with a powerful Web-based tool: iThenticate’s plagiarism-detection program, which made it possible to compare Star-Telegram work with a vast universe of published material.
Although the Internet has created easy opportunity for writers to commit plagiarism, using simple cut-and-paste commands, Web technology also has given us powerful new resources to combat the problem.
All randomly selected stories have passed muster. No questionable work had been encountered until Perkins’ work was examined, and we wouldn’t have looked at the work had the caller not raised a concern.
That’s why, Witt said, ‘we invite readers to let us know whenever they have a question about what we’re doing.’
Nearly a year before the fact-checking policy went into effect, the Star-Telegram brought back a tool that had fallen into disuse: the accuracy questionnaire.
This is an eight-question form that I mail to sources in randomly selected stories. The questionnaire basically asks sources whether they were quoted accurately and treated well by staff, but we also ask the source’s opinion of the Star-Telegram and what would make it a better newspaper.
As was the case in the ’70s when the questionnaire was first used, few sources reply. Those who do generally offer positive assessments of the paper and staffers.
Beyond these policies are many others that guide the Star-Telegram staff’s work in a complex and demanding world.
Among the most visible efforts are two that are unusual in that they are not widespread practices among U.S. newspapers: an aggressive corrections and clarification policy and the provision of a reader advocate position.
New Star-Telegram readers sometimes are surprised to see corrections published on Page One, but a credibility-conscious policy requires us to publish corrections and clarifications on the cover page of the section in which errors or confusing content were published.
Since 1991, readers also have had a designated editor who serves as the reader advocate – a staffer to whom they may bring questions or concerns about what the Star-Telegram is doing or not doing.
We’re one of only about 40 U.S. newspapers to provide readers with such a contact.
Whether in fact-checking or listening to readers’ concerns, it’s all about the Star-Telegram’s effort to maintain a two-way relationship with readers – one that’s based on a conviction that openness and honesty are central to nurturing credibility.
Plagiarism and other problems have brought dark moments for journalism, created by relatively few of our colleagues, but they are covered openly by a news industry that abhors secrecy.
They are covered by the Star-Telegram so its readers will know what’s happening – and what’s being done about it.
