Dowd’s plagiarism one of many instances of declining media standards
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 9:46AM 
That's me on a New York visit, taking in the view from atop the Empire State Building.The Talking Points Memo blog is probably getting record page views today, after an admission from The New York Times that neo-liberal columnist Maureen Dowd lifted some lines from a neo-liberal blogger at TPM. This is really just another sorry chapter in the decline of media standards.
But Dowd's infraction will have short legs—Dowd is part of pomp media and they always give themselves a pass. The NYT has already worked in the attribution that should have been there in the first place. If Dowd were a conservative writer, inflammatory stories would be passed from blogger to blogger and even to publications perhaps such as The Columbia Journalism Review. Funny thing is the conservative wouldn’t even have to be guilty for that to happen. For pomp media, only rumor is required when the target is a conservative.
