The search marketing world has been in a frenzy over Google’s recent ‘Panda’ update.  The Panda release involved modifying some of the underlying mechanisms of Google’s search algorithm – the result has been a benefit to some websites and a hindrance to others. Google’s primary goal with the Panda release was to place less importance on ‘content farms’ that regularly produced unoriginal material.

One of the big benefits of Panda is that websites that publish plagiarized materials regularly should be taking a big hit.  

It’s pretty common that the younger generation gets blamed for plagiarism. Many people see a bunch of kids who grew up on the internet, mashing up You Tube videos and engaging in a cut-and-paste free for all with no regard for ‘journalistic integrity.’ There is definitely an argument to be made that a ‘free-wheeling’ internet culture has been a thorn in the side of proper citations and giving attribution where it’s due.

However, lately it seems that lapses of ethical judgment have been falling on the venerated professionals who have been entrenched in their respective industries for decades.  This was most recently illustrated with the case of Sari Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist who outright plagiarized from other news sources due to the ‘deadline pressure’ she was facing.