Librarian Rick Anderson uses examples from literature to explain the differences between plagiarism and copyright infringement: "The difference matters — not least because plagiarism, while dishonest and reprehensible, is not illegal. Copyright infringement is. Copyright infringement can, in fact, constitute criminal behavior, as opposed to a civil infraction, and sometimes even rises to the level of a felony." Also, why "self-plagiarism" is an inaccurate term.
Ethics
An American Press Institute report examines journalism funding by nonprofit groups and issues some warnings: "A growing amount of funding is for coverage of specific problems and even specific investigations, not just general coverage areas or by providing more general grants for operations. There is a fair amount of variation in the nature of editorial communication. And there are relatively few written guidelines establishing clear rules of editorial independence."
Gerald Eskenazi writes about the time that the new director of Madison Square Garden gave him a juicy quote that effectively dissed sports fans, then called back and asked to take it off the record. More than 40 years later, Eskenazi still wonders whether he should have gone along: "Can you make something off the record once you’ve said it on the record? Are journalists accorded the right to make these unilateral decisions? Is there a moral aspect to this whole thing?"
A Chinese newspaper's undercover reporter exposed cheating on university exams, but Charles Liu writes that the effort is being denounced: "Chen Baocheng, a reporter with Caixin Media, criticized the undercover reporter’s use of another person’s identity to gain admittance to the exam. Chen said that since the undercover reporter committed the same crime as those he was attempting to expose, he should be punished as well. 'A news article is no excuse,' Chen said."