Hindustan Times copies SM’s homework

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The “venerable” Hindustan Times newspaper had a very interesting article posted to its website earlier today titled “Brawn and Bikinis.” It briefly profiled two very unusual Indian Americans who will surely capture the interest and imagination of Sepia Mutiny readers:

In further evidence of their remarkable integration into the US mainstream, Indian Americans made their first mark in two facets of US popular culture: an iconic swimsuit calendar and the American football championship game.

A Harvard University student has become the first Indian-American to be featured in the magazine Sports Illustrated’s celebrated swimsuit issue. Sonia Dara appears in the 2010 issue that went on sale in the US on Tuesday.

Another Indian-American made immigrant history on Sunday by becoming the first from the community to be on a team competing in the Superbowl, the American football championship game and the country’s biggest sporting event. That was John Singh Gill of the losing team, the Indianapolis Colts. [Link]

Hmmmm. Those two items seem awfully familiar! Didn’t I just read about both these topics somewhere else on the internet this past week?? Oh. Right. I read about them in two of the last 5 blog posts right here on SM.

You see, Anirudh Bhattacharyya decided to simply take two of our latest posts and combine them into one of his original stories without mentioning or citing SM as the source for the idea. At SM we get ideas for stories from lots of places, including mainstream newspapers. But at least we always cite them. Let us fisk some more, shall we? Take the next paragraph:

The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, first published in 1964, is an iconic American publication. It has served as a launching pad for many future supermodels, including Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum. The issue attracts tens of millions of dollars in advertising.

This paragraph was paraphrased and spliced together straight out of the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for the SI Swimsuit issue. Everything else in the article seems to be lifted without attribution from other sources already published on the web. I hope the Hindustan Times isn’t paying for this mimicry. They should just pay us the money instead since our writers are doing the work. Shame shame. I know your name.

Update: The journalist’s name sounded familiar so I searched my email inbox. I had spoken to Mr. Bhattacharyya back in 2005. He wanted to interview us about Sepia Mutiny.

Hi Abhi,

I got your email from [name deleted]… I’m working on an article on desi blogs and wanted to look at sepiamutiny in that context. Is there a number you can be reached at? And what day and time is usually good for you?

Thanks

Anirudh Bhattacharyya
Editor, mantram
Consulting Editor, South Asia World

So again, we are absolutely thrilled when someone wants to publish a “mainstream” story based on an idea they got from one or more of our posts. Just cite the fact that your idea came from here is all we ask. It’s only fair

51 thoughts on “Hindustan Times copies SM’s homework”

  4. Strictly speaking, I’m not sure if HT’s article counts as copying. Sure it’s got a lot to do with recent posts on SM, but the article contains a lot of information you didn’t mention (information about Sonia Dara’s family, for instance). Even if this has been sourced from other sites, it would only be a case of aggregation. Aggregation of news from other sources is a grey area, AFAIK (provided it isn’t a word-by-word rip, in which case it’s clear plagiarism).

    That said, Indian newspapers have a lousy record where copying from Wikipedia is concerned – especially so for photographs. Attribution, a vital component of the CC-by-SA license, is easily forgotten. Two separate instances of unattributed Wikipedia photos in the Times of India have come up on my Twitter feed this evening alone.

    In short, I don’t think you can win this in a court or anything. Manju above says it best, IMO 🙂

  5. Don’t want to bring anybody down, but Mr.Gill did not end up playing in the Super Bowl as he was not on the game day roster.

  6. It’s sad that at this point, I can’t really find myself expecting much else from India in media and publishing. Definitely effects of growing up around the 90s and 00s (north) Indian culture of ripping off everything and anything from both East and West (and South) without the slightest regard for copyright.

  7. Same old story for TOI and HT. It looks like that becoming journalist in India is easier than being a blogger. The main problem I see is not the authors but the editors. How do they approve so much stuff without even noticing that the material is plagiarized. May be the editor might have done the same things. Shame on Indian news papers.

  8. What do you expect…. even some grad students I met in one of the best universities in India would copy and paste things (extremely obviously) when writing English papers…. and get away with it.

  9. I like SM and HT. Sonia Dara was posted on SM yesterday and it appears in HT today. HT being a bigger organization, typically it takes more than two days to publish articles so let us give them benefit of doubt.

    Also please don’t forget it is there full time job to track/read ohter publishings. SM posted these stories after reading from other papers also

    A

  10. Also please don’t forget it is there full time job to track/read ohter publishings. SM posted these stories after reading from other papers also

    A, please read the whole post. Your comment has already been addressed. The lack of CITATION is the problem.

  12. Ha! I accidentally misread Manju’s post as “irritation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Indeed, indeed.

    I remember something like this happening years ago when I had a regularly updating blog, and was interviewed, along with a number of other bloggers, for an article this one woman was writing on Indians and blogging. She happened to tap a blogger/journalist as one of her sources, who turned around, spiked the idea, and wrote her own story on it, publishing it before the woman interviewing us could send hers to print. Pretty lame.

  14. Hmm… I know that Indian papers don’t have the best ethics, but in this case I don’t think they are in the wrong. It is common practice to take ‘ideas’ from other publications, and there is rarely credit given for this. As a journalist that writes for major publications, I know that this is industry norm.

    For instance, if the WaPo breaks a story, The NYTimes will quickly pick it up and write their own version. They don’t cite The Post when doing so. They do their own research. If they are using quotes from the WaPo story or details that are otherwise not available, then of course, they must offer a credit.

    Yes, the Indian papers are probably getting ideas from your posts. Do they owe you a credit for this? I really don’t think so.

  15. For instance, if the WaPo breaks a story, The NYTimes will quickly pick it up and write their own version. They don’t cite The Post when doing so. They do their own research. If they are using quotes from the WaPo story or details that are otherwise not available, then of course, they must offer a credit.

    I tend to agree with you, but the NY Times and Wash. Post do not even come close to doing what Indian newspapers do. The Times and Post may take an idea, but they always follow it up with some original reporting. And their “rewrite people” write artcles based on their own reporters’ original reporting, not on another paper’s. What Indian papers do is regurgitate what has been cooked elsewhere and try to serve it to customers, whereas the Times and Post will take the recipe and try to concoct something tasty.

  16. “What do you expect…. even some grad students I met in one of the best universities in India would copy and paste things (extremely obviously) when writing English papers…. and get away with it.”

    When I was in b-school, one of my classmates was a foreign student from Pakistan. Nice guy, but he had the same problem. I asked him to review materials from the Economist Intelligence Unit on India’s pharmaceutical industry, and he submitted a write-up which was just a word for word copy from the EIU.

  17. Oh, please! News is news. Bloggers just happen to get it up first. Newspapers have editors, re-writes, and copy editors to pass through before a story goes to print. Just cos’ MJ’s news broke on TMZ.com first doesn’t mean the rest of the publishing world copied & pasted this news bit.

    Desi spotting IS news for publications around the world. I read about SRK’s nude pics on the web before I got SM. Doesn’t mean you are credible of you credit. Doesn’t mean you are a rip-off artist if you don’t. What qualifies as “newsworthy” is more nebulous today than ever before.

  19. “”What do you expect…. even some grad students I met in one of the best universities in India would copy and paste things (extremely obviously) when writing English papers…. and get away with it.”

    When I was in b-school, one of my classmates was a foreign student from Pakistan. Nice guy, but he had the same problem. I asked him to review materials from the Economist Intelligence Unit on India’s pharmaceutical industry, and he submitted a write-up which was just a word for word copy from the EIU. “

    Yup. A foreign student from India got kicked out of my grad school for the same.

  21. I think in this case the problem is not so much HT but Anirudh. If you look for him on Linkedin you can see he doesn’t work for HT but CNN IBN and based on West Coast or lets not look at the facts and blame the whole nation of plagiarism.

  23. HT has a dubious reputation in these situations. Some of you have defended Anirudh’s actions, but here’s an inexcusable instance of plagiarizing by HT. About a year ago, they lifted pictures straight from an Indian blog on photography to illustrate their stories – no citation, no acknowledgment, nothing. The photographer started adding a watermark to her photographs, but they just cropped out her watermark and continued using her work in their stories. She threatened to pursue legal action, and since then, they’ve stopped stealing from her blog but have yet to acknowledge or apologize to the blogger.

  25. “”What do you expect…. even some grad students I met in one of the best universities in India would copy and paste things (extremely obviously) when writing English papers…. and get away with it.”

    When I was in b-school, one of my classmates was a foreign student from Pakistan. Nice guy, but he had the same problem. I asked him to review materials from the Economist Intelligence Unit on India’s pharmaceutical industry, and he submitted a write-up which was just a word for word copy from the EIU. “

    Yup. A foreign student from India got kicked out of my grad school for the same.

    • That does not seem exactly fair. There is no class on plagiarism in Business School (or is there one?) so he/she probably did not know any better.

  26. Strange that CNN-IBN would allow employee involvement in professional KLPD. Isn’t there something like a SOX for the Indian media?

  28. Now, wait a minute, folks. Considering most blogs — yours too — hangs out by scavenging content from other original sources and commenting on it (that’s your sense of ‘acknowledgment’), it’s a little thick bashing the whole media, innit? Between Hindustan Times and Sepia Mutiny, who do you think has more ‘original’ content? Sure this journalist could have acknowledged SM, but isn’t it a little arrogant on your part to think you are the sole source of the info?

  29. Sure this journalist could have acknowledged SM, but isn’t it a little arrogant on your part to think you are the sole source of the info?

    I think it’s one thing to talk about “sole source” and another thing to talk about “angle.” There was actually a lot of talk in the SM bunker about how to approach writing the pieces this week. People were calling dibs and pitching angles, etc.. Ennis texted me when he got his idea on the angle to his blog entry. Sure the source is generic but the angle is original and thought and discussion was gone into it. And that’s really what is at the crux here – it’s not about the news being sourced, but it’s about the angle to the story that was copied.

    Sure it could have been a coincidence. But come on.

    I just think it’s hilarious that Abhi blogged about it.

  30. I dont know what is going on, but I knew about both of those items before Sepia blogged about, maybe that guy did to?

    He said that Gill was the 1st Indian American on a SuperBowl team,but if he read your article he would know that he wasnt because you said that he wasnt. You said that Bobby Singh was on the Rams when they won the SuperBowl. On the other hand, Indian people do love to steal(movies and music) so maybe he did.

    If that guy didnt cite anyone then that is wrong, because he had to have gotten it from someone. I knew about Gill because I live in Chicago and saw him play at NorthWestern and read about him in the local paper and I knew about that indian woman because I like to occasionally look at pictures of women in bikinis. If I write about it then I must cite the information from which I learned about these things.

  31. No, this is not plagarism.

    Before, we flog anyone in public, let us look carefully.

    If I go to http://www.nytimes.com, http://www.washingtonpost.com, http://www.sepiamutiny.com, http://www.desipundit.com, etc., read two stories from a host of stories there, and splice them together. Am I plagarizing, absolutely not. Unless, I pick the core idea (sentences), and pass it on as mine, then it is plagarism. An Indian-American being in SI or super-bowl being reported is not SM idea, it is open news item that SM wrote about.

    Now, to wikipedia, he has not plagarised, it is all common knowledge. Everytime, you mention Newton’s Law, you do not refer to Sir Issac Newton or Principica Mathematica.

  32. What do you expect…. even some grad students I met in one of the best universities in India would copy and paste things (extremely obviously) when writing English papers…. and get away with it

    Depending on how they are being evaluated, the students may be expected to do exactly that in their exams. That’s why it’s called rote learning and why it gets a bad rap. Is it any wonder that many employers do extensive due diligence prior to hiring regardless of paper qualifications?

  34. As those of us who pay close attention to the media in India know all too well, journalism in the desh has serious issues. There is an utter absence of journalistic standards, the mediawallahs insist on no accountability for their actions (cough, barkha dutt) while routinely bullying their critics (barkha dutt again), and practically anyone can become a reporter just by getting handed a mic and a camera. There needs to be a push for serious undergraduate and graduate schools of journalism (like medill and columbia in the united states) and uniform standards for conduct, accuracy and accountability. Though we see the blending between politics and journalism in the United States too, there were and still are giants such as Cronkite, Brokaw, Koppel and solid investigative reporters such as Michael Isikoff who were committed to the field rather than an opinion.

    If the Times of India has paid for news (not opinion but news), it’s no surprise that the rest of the media engages in shady practices as well.

  35. “- That does not seem exactly fair. There is no class on plagiarism in Business School (or is there one?) so he/she probably did not know any better.”

    Pretty much every college or graduate school syllabus I have ever seen in the U.S. contains a warning about plagiarism and cheating. It’s not a secret.

    “Depending on how they are being evaluated, the students may be expected to do exactly that in their exams. That’s why it’s called rote learning and why it gets a bad rap.”

    Rote learning, aka memorizing, is NOT the same thing as copying. It is committing facts to memory and regurgitating them. That is entirely different from, say, going online to a couple websites and copy-pasting entire paragraphs which are then passed off as your own.

  36. Abhi,

    I am sorry I did not read the whole post in the morning as I was rushing to work.

    You are right. This is pathetic. It does appear he copied from the post of SM.

    On a diffrent note, I found this site only 3 months back but I am hooked to it even if I don’t post messages. You guys are doing a great job and most importantly your loyal readers do a great job in posting news items.

    A

    Abhi wrote A, please read the whole post. Your comment has already been addressed. The lack of CITATION is the problem.

  37. Now, to wikipedia, he has not plagarised, it is all common knowledge. Everytime, you mention Newton’s Law, you do not refer to Sir Issac Newton or Principica Mathematica.

    Mentioning Newton’s Law is not plagiarizing. If you use the language on wikipedia to describe Newton’s Law and don’t mention where you got the information, yes, it’s plagiarizing. Even from wikipedia!

  38. I posted a comment on HT indicating that they have copied the material. Two others have done the same. It will be nice if more people comment on HT article….

    A

  39. So again, we are absolutely thrilled when someone wants to publish a “mainstream” story based on an idea they got from one or more of our posts. Just cite the fact that your idea came from here is all we ask. It’s only fair

    i am not so sure. the author’s schtick is ‘brawn and bikinis’- an effective contrast and a pop idealization of the male and the female – very far rffom the original articles. i would judge it an original piece. ymmv.

    otoh, posting someone’s personal missive into the public domain is not cool. he’s done you no harm and even if he was inspired by your posts there was enough stretch to make it an original piece. no man. not cool.

  40. Rote learning, aka memorizing, is NOT the same thing as copying. It is committing facts to memory and regurgitating them. That is entirely different from, say, going online to a couple websites and copy-pasting entire paragraphs which are then passed off as your own.

    I would agree in this context, but I don’t see the difference between the two when the object of the exercise is to reproduce text close to as it appears in the model answer book used to evaluate the student’s work.

  41. “I would agree in this context, but I don’t see the difference between the two when the object of the exercise is to reproduce text close to as it appears in the model answer book used to evaluate the student’s work.”

    ?

    Grad school in supposed to be about reproducing text close to the ‘model answer’? Not sure what you studied (I suppose some subjects would not be like this, generally I would assume the sciences, but I wouldn’t know!), but I don’t think that is the case in subjects like Anthropology (which is the program I was in when I was talking about someone getting kicked out), literature, sociology, demagraphics, etc. Generally the whole point of writing papers in the class is to reflect on someone else’s ideas and then synthesize various concepts and thoughts and come up with your own opinions, backed up with appropriate sources…

  42. Grad school in supposed to be about reproducing text close to the ‘model answer’?

    Again, depends on the situation at hand and what the teacher expects from the students. In any case, after being trained to reproduce a ‘model answer’ for so many years, the habit would be hard to break.

  43. “I told my wife when we were married 10-plus years ago that anything you find on my computer, it’s research. This post falls under that clause,” Columbia University Journalism professor Sreenath Sreenivasan, who first gave the head’s up in a tweet about the landmark event, joked. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for our community, including making the sacrifice of searching through the new Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, looking for South Asian connections.” While the sight of scantily-clad belles cavorting in the Rajasthani countryside (including in some temples) will spark the usual outrage in conservative circles, it was received with much good humor in the cyberworld, where S-I links were much perused. “What bothers me is the exotification not the objectification. I actually wish desi men would get objectified in the media…I mean, don’t you get tired of being appreciated for your mind all the time?” the blog Sepia Mutiny said in mock outrage.

    From: US sports mag makes a splash with India shoot

  45. Abhi,i agree with your post and support you in this case. HT should have cited SM in their story.

    I rarely comment but i want to take this opputunity to appreciate you and other SM contributors like pillygirl, Anna and taz,I live in dubai and was following your site for the last 4 years or so.

    You guys do a great job and i request you to continue the work.All i can say is a big Thank you.

  47. Guys,

    I asked HT to quote the source in the comment section of the artilce. This morning they removed my comment and several others comments. I got the following email

    To all who are posting this as a copied work, what makes you think that this is a copied version ? HT is a news brand and they publish content like other people do, stop making claims that a news is copied.

    News cant belong to someone as an original content, its spread everywhere, it belongs to who picks it up.

    I am reporting these comments to moderator so that they remove the messages who claim that its a copied version. Send mail to the author instead.

  50. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for our community, including making the sacrifice of searching through the new Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, looking for South Asian connections.”