Plagiarism is described in NPR’s writer policies as the “unforgivable sin” of journalism, but their reaction to an instance of plagiarism from one of their own interns this past week shows that nothing in the media is ever black and white. Ahmad Shafi, an intern who up until a few months ago was serving on the Kabul bureau for NPR as a fixer and translator, copied, pasted, and only slightly modified sixty-eight words from a story written in 2001 by Jason Burke- a clear case of plagiarism.

Plagiarism in journalism is nothing new, but it’s rare that the integrity of a newsroom as large and respected as the Chicago Tribune is questioned. On July 13th, the revered Windy City periodical ended their relationship with Journatic, an outsourced news agency, after discovering that quotes from both the Deerfield Review and Patch.com had been used in Tribune articles in the month of June. In a statement released Friday morning, the Tribune stated that it will now rely on its regular staff and “trusted freelancers” to provide the local news Journatic had been supplying them with.

In 2011, The Scientific World Journal was excluded from the annual Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports for being an accomplice in a ‘citation cartel.’  Phil Davis over at the Scholarly Kitchen first uncovered evidence against the Scientific World Journal for excessive self-citation practices along with two other journals that shared common board members: Cell Transplantation and Medical Science Monitor.