Editor caught out

2003-09-20 21:59

Mduduzi Dlamini and Mmuso Pelesa

Johannesburg - Glamourous and glossy Elle magazine's first black editor, Cynthia Vongai, has shot herself in the foot when she allegedly plagiarised an article, word for word, that originally appeared on the internet website askmen.com.

The Sowetan published Vongai's regular column on Friday, which turned out to have been wholly stolen from an article originally written by reporter Chris Rovny for the website askmen.com.

City Press reporter Maphamola Lebelo, who is a regular visitor to the site, was astounded to see the daily publishing the article under Vongai's column, acccompanied by her picture by-line. Lebelo had read Rovny's article on the internet three weeks ago. It was headlined "Dress (And Look)Like A Million Bucks" which on Friday appeared as Vongai's feature article titled "Real Style costs, But it's Worth It".

When Vongai was approached to clarify the matter, she said Sowetan editor John Dludlu "knew everything" as to how the article got into his paper.

However, when City Press initially contacted Dludlu he was unaware the article had been a word-for-word reproduction of an internet article, from the introduction and the sub-headlines to the last line.

Vongai's economic response was: "There was a source-credit to the article."

This discovery of plagiarism comes fast on the heels of widely-syndicated columnist Darrel Bristow-Bovey's "resignation" on Thursday from several publications after new evidence emerged that he used other authors' writings without acknowledgement.

Stellenbosch University department of journalism lecturer Dr Herman Wasserman said: "The ethical aspect of plagiarism is contravening the basic trust between writer and reader. The internet is a tempting source of information.

"There are huge volumes of information whose source cannot be traced. Plagiarism undermines the credibility of the journalist and the publication."

Though under South African law plagiarism is not a prosecutable offence, it is considered a criminal offence under copyright infringements laws that are well-protected.

Sowetan editor Dludlu said: "We've established the original source was inadvertently left out. This will be corrected." It is understood Sowetan will attempt damage control on Monday.

Publisher of Associated Magazines, Vanessa Raphaely, was dismayed that Vongai could reproduce someone else's article as her own. She said it was "disgraceful".

"It's sad that it's happening to high-profile journalists in this country.

"It's hard enough for journalists to be taken seriously by people and this makes it much harder. That it's done by someone of her standing, someone who should be guarding against such acts in her publications, is sad."

Publisher of the magazine division in Johncom, Gisele Wertheim-Aymes, was unavailable to respond to City Press enquiries.

- City Press