March 17, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — A story on the Washington Post's decision to suspend a Pulitzer Prize-winning
reporter for plagiarism includes a comment from Bob Steele, Distinguished Visiting Professor of
Journalism Ethics at DePauw University. The reporter, Sari Horwitz, has apologized for using information on the January shootings in Arizona from a report in the Arizona Republic, without attributing it to the newspaper. The Post has suspended Horwitz for 90 days.
Of plagiarism, Dr. Steele tells the Post, "For a long time, it was viewed as an excommunication sin, beyond
mortal sin. But nowadays, editors try to look at the full context of
what happened and why it happened." 
Paul Farhi writes that Dr. Steele "added that digital technology and increased competition via the Internet make such errors of judgment more likely."
Access the story by clicking here.
A 1969 graduate of DePauw, Robert M. Steele is also Phyllis W. Nicholas Director of the University's Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics. He chaired a task force that reviewed the ethics policy of NPR, as noted in this recent article.