Journalism, they say, is history written in a hurry. And some hurry more than the rest. The daily dash to beat the deadlines have inspired others to plagiarize, as we can read from this report by Hector Bryant Macale of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.

As you can see, next to the case of the Alecks Pabico was my own. Yes, one of my articles in Malaya was plagiarized only a day after it was published.

Find my article here and the offending article here.

The report took me hours to find, study, write and edit. I was so happy that the desk found it fit to print. Ma’am Ellen likewise featured it in her popular blog and quickly gathered reactions.

When I discovered it, I of course felt offended and insulted. There would have been no problem had there been proper attribution to portions lifted verbatim from my Malaya article.

Media experts agreed that Alecks’ and my cases were acts of plagiarism, according to a sidebar to Bryant’s report.

I agree with one of the report’s resource persons that journalists always have a right to use various sources to pursue a story. But the key is attribution. We must be honest and humble in acknowledging that we use work done by others.

Come to think of it, plagiarism not only violates the rights and punishes the author of the original work. As if that isn’t enough: Plagiarism insults the readers and audience of media because some think they can get away with fooling them that the article presented them were purportedly authored by the person whose name is given the glory of the byline.

More on plagiarism here.